All the Good Stories
by EllieV
Summary: An alternate universe SGA set shortly after season one where we still thought Sheppard's father was a Colonel. Warning: contains original characters. This story has been reposted at the request of someone at SGA Storyfinders. It will be taken down in a few weeks.
1. Chapter 1

_This tune was composed by Spencer the Rover,  
__as valiant a man as ever left home,  
he had been much reduced which caused great confusion,  
and that was the reason he started to roam.  
_- Spencer the Rover (trad)

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Prologue**

They sat in the mess in what clichés called "a companionable silence." At least, Weir was silent because she was eavesdropping on Beckett's and McKay's conversation four tables away. Sheppard was silent because he wasn't talking, nor was he listening to anything. At least, she didn't think so. He wasn't all that companionable really. He was reading, one hand shoveling food into his mouth. The book wasn't _War and Peace_. She suspected that Lt Colonel Sheppard had originally brought along rather more personal items than the one allowed. After settling into Atlantis people had started pooling their books to make a library. There weren't many real books even though the Daedelus was now making regular runs between Pegasus and Earth, and people could have personal items shipped. They had a lot of e-books and readers and someone had cheekily downloaded all of Project Gutenberg onto a computer. But Sheppard, she noticed, always had a hardcover—and didn't share them.

"May I join you, Colonel?" she had said.

"Sure," he replied, not putting the book down nor even looking up. She wasn't certain if he actually realized it was her. The book was obviously enthralling. This one didn't have a dust jacket and she couldn't make out the writing on the spine. It looked old and worn, the lettering pealing and faded. Tuning out of Rodney and Carson's sniping, curiosity got the better of her.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

"Mmmm?" he mumbled.

"Book. Reading. You. Colonel," she enunciated.

"Elizabeth." He put the book down carefully, as though it was precious, the way someone would handle a delicate rose to prevent the petals falling. He smiled at her. "How was your day, Dr Weir? Mine was boring. Wraith darts, getting shot at, nothing new." He glanced over at Beckett and McKay, who were now pointing fingers at each other. "What are they arguing about now?" Sheppard toyed with his fork. "Hey, do you think we have enough food for a fight?"

She frowned at the non-sequiturs and craned her neck a little to peer at the spine. She could make out "_...of the ... Revo …_." Revolting? Revocation? Revolution? He waved a hand in front of her face to get her attention and smiled again, an evil, mischievous little boy grin. It was Distraction No. 2 in her list of John Sheppard smiles, second only to Distraction No. 1, the "I don't want to talk about it." She fell for the smile as usual, looking back at him just as he flipped some mashed potato at her from his fork, grabbed his book and bolted, laughing, from the room.

He was so juvenile. As she wiped the mess from her jacket she noticed the suppressed grins around her. Even Rodney and Carson had stopped their finger pointing. Juvenile but, as Carson pointed out to her later, John Sheppard was good for morale.

_Thus nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on some support;  
and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship.  
_- Marcus Tullius Cicero


	2. Chapter 2

_In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future.  
The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.  
_- Eric Hoffer

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter One**

Various members of the Atlantis team waited in the gateroom. She could see Sheppard from her office. He had the slightly glazed, concentrated look on his face he always had when he was calculating something. She had asked him after the puddlejumper had been stuck in the gate—when she thought she'd lose them all—what Sheppard used as an anger control mechanism, confessing that she had threatened to send Kavanaugh to a barren wasteland planet. Sheppard had looked approving.

Sheppard replied, "It depends how angry I am. You?" then flashed Distraction No. 1 at her. Weir said she used a once faddish deep-breathing technique.

When the news came through that they were being sent reinforcements she asked Sheppard if he knew General Norman Elliot. O'Neill hadn't been at the SGC to fill her in and the news had come from the unfailingly polite but non-gossipy General Landry. Weir supposed that O'Neill wouldn't have told her anything over an open channel anyway but she thought that Sheppard might know Elliot. The Air Force, as big as it was, was still a small community.

As the Atlantis military team clattered in to wait the arrival of their new commanding officer, she realized that Sheppard hadn't answered either of her questions, but right now he looked very angry indeed.

_Wee have engaged in this Kingdome and ventur'd our lives, and itt was all for this:  
to recover our birthrights and priviledges as Englishmen, and by the arguments urged there is none.  
_- Edward Sexby, Putney Debates (1649)

It was yet another military briefing. They had a lot of those. Since they'd made contact with the SGC again bit-by-bit Atlantis had become militarized. Elizabeth Weir hated it. She was still nominally in charge but her power had become subordinate to General Elliot, who had now been there several weeks. She had been spoilt by the easygoing, cheerfully dumb act that Jack O'Neill affected. They had all been spoilt. Most of her staff, including the scientists, had worked with or for O'Neill prior to joining the Atlantis expedition. Even those who hadn't had much to do with O'Neill had been spoilt. They'd had John Sheppard. She wasn't supposed to know that General Elliot's nickname in Atlantis was "General Enema." She allowed none of her amusement at the nickname to show on her face.

She glanced around the table as Enema ... _Elliot_ ... droned on. Rodney had zoned out. Carson was frowning, doodling on his notepad. She hoped that Elliot didn't find out about his nickname; the good doctor was at the head of her shortlist as to who thought it up. Teyla, there against the General's wishes but at Weir's insistence, looked bewildered. Elliot didn't translate the jargon. Stackhouse looked blank and she wondered if he practiced that "I'm a nobody sergeant" look in front of a mirror.

As Major Williams took over from Enem ... _Elliot_ ... she risked a glance at John Sheppard. After being the senior officer in Atlantis, John Sheppard was back to being a pilot and at the General's bidding, sometimes a groundpounder. He hadn't protested. He'd just smiled and flicked his gaze downwards.

"Sir," he'd said. She had caught a glimpse of that smile before—in the gateroom on Earth just before they left. Colonel Sumner had put that look there. She still didn't know what it meant. Sheppard sat, his hands folded, that smile on his face, his eyes mostly cast down at his hands. He looked up and caught her gaze. The smile broadened slightly and he looked down again. If there was a joke somewhere in this, she wished he'd let her in on it. She'd tried to talk to him but as always, Weir never got beyond the slight flirtatiousness he affected when he didn't want to talk about anything deep.

John Sheppard was good at deflection.

Major Williams stopped talking and _Enema_—she thought defiantly—mercifully didn't start except to dismiss the troops. The mission was a go. Bates's team had found a potential trading partner. The General would take charge. She didn't protest that she should go because it was a diplomatic rather than a military mission; there wasn't any other sort in the General's rule book. She frowned as Sheppard executed a textbook salute—Enema made the military Atlanteans salute; it was pointless—and then disappeared out the door. John Sheppard wasn't a textbook officer and his salutes were usually sloppy at best. She'd try to catch him before they left.

_I hope that none in the Army will say but that I have performed my duty, and that with some success, as well as others. I am loath to leave the Army, with whom I will live and die, insomuch that rather than I will lose this regiment of mine the Parliament shall exclude me the House, or imprison me; for truly while I am employed abroad I will not be undone at home.  
_- Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates (1647)

He stood against the wall, listening to his attorney. His father was pacing up and down; his Nana sat, her back ramrod straight in the chair, with a look of disdain on her face. She didn't care for lawyers. She didn't care for the American military either—he was grateful she hadn't said any of it was his fault for joining up in the first place. Maybe making his own decisions, such as they were, made up for it.

Sheppard interrupted, "I can understand not wanting me in a combat zone but a desk job?"

His father snorted. "What's the worst punishment you can think of, boyo?" He was always "boyo" when he was in trouble. A habit picked up from the maternal northern English line.

"Not flying," he said softly.

"Then they picked the one thing that would affect you the most," his father said. He hesitated and offered almost tentatively, "I know people; I'm still owed favors."

"Dad …" Sheppard shook his head, though in his heart he knew that strings would be pulled whether he wanted them or not.

_Having by our late labours and hazards made it appear to the world at how high a rate we value our just freedom, and God having so far owned our cause as to deliver the enemies thereof into our hands, we do now hold ourselves bound in mutual duty to each other to take the best care we can for the future to avoid both the danger of returning into a slavish condition  
and the chargeable remedy of another war.  
_- An Agreement of the People for a firme and prefent Peace, upon grounds of common-right and freedome, Leveller manifesto (1647)

Only one person could have stopped him from going to Atlantis. He used to think that she was a telepath then he thought she was omniscient. It took him a while to work out that she was just his Nana, who thought new days were important. He remembered his father arguing with her, calling it being held prisoner to history. He also remembered his father visiting him after Afghanistan with family history and family present conflicting in his face. His father had never disobeyed an order.

Sheppard sat on his bed and flicked through the photos. Next to him was a frame that Jinto had made. The boy had asked if he missed his family and Sheppard said that he did but that he had photos as reminders. Of course, that meant explaining photos and Jinto pouring over them, asking him eager questions.

He found the photo he wanted and carefully placed it in the frame. It fit perfectly. When the knock at the door came, he placed the frame on the bedside table. Time to stop hiding so much.

"You have a minute?" Weir stood in the doorway.

"Sure," he said.

She clasped her hands, just as she had the last time, her usual precursor to an awkward conversation.

"About General Elliot wanting you to return to pilot duties," she began.

Sheppard lifted his hands, palms out, and looked deliberately rueful. This conversation was not unexpected. Of course, what the General actually bellowed—in front of McKay and Teyla—was that he didn't want a screw up like Sheppard anywhere near him. He'd even asked who Sheppard had been sleeping with to get promoted. O'Neill told him, he said, that Sheppard was Weir's "favorite genetic mutant." Sheppard didn't know O'Neill that well and wondered if he'd actually used those words. But it wasn't difficult for him—or anyone else—to connect what Elliot was implying.

Elliot said Sheppard would be allowed to go on missions and fly the puddlejumpers until he got kicked back to Earth at the first opportunity. What Sheppard wanted to say in return was that Elliot was an incompetent piece of crap who shouldn't be in charge of himself let alone anyone else. He had ignored Elliot the first time—it had been the right thing to do—but there was too much of his father, the Cold War Hero, in him. This time there wasn't anyone at stake other than himself and he'd replied, "Yes sir" instead. Nana said everything had a flow on effect. That first choice, even before Antarctica, was what landed him in Atlantis.

"Flying is what I do best," he said, in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. It was nice that she worried about him but then she worried about everyone. Distracting her worked sometimes so he handed her the frame. "See what Jinto gave me?"

"It's beautiful," she said. She smiled teasingly. "This your girlfriend?"

He took the frame back and put it on the table. "My grandmother, on her engagement. She's eighty-nine now."

"She's lovely. Do you think she could leave me that hair slide in her will?"

He chuckled and grinned Distraction No. 5—the "I'm going to say something cheeky"—at her. "You'd have to marry me first and then it would go to our eldest daughter, it being a family heirloom n' all." He was mock solemn. "Dr Weir, will you marry me?"

Weir smiled back at him and at his marriage proposal. "No thanks, Colonel Sheppard, I'd end up insane and I'd have to kill you, and then I still wouldn't get the hair slide."

"Ah, well," he subsided, still smiling.

"How old is it?" she wanted to know.

"Old." He considered the hair slide. "Antique. About 350 years. It gets passed down."

She was impressed, and he thought with satisfaction, completely distracted. He said casually, "I have it here, you know." Now he had her.

"One personal item, Colonel," Weir said in severe "I've said this before" tones.

He lifted and dropped his shoulders, unrepentant. "You want to see it or not?"

She sat on the end of his bed and he pulled over his backpack.

"You keep a family heirloom in your backpack?" she asked.

He looked faintly embarrassed. "Good luck charm."

He rummaged around and pulled out a bundle of red silk. He unwrapped it deftly—he'd done it a lot since arriving in Atlantis. Sheppard handed Weir a small wooden box. She opened it, looked in, and turned the box around to Sheppard.

It was empty.

_Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  
_- Arthur C. Clarke


	3. Chapter 3

_The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble  
activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted  
activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy.  
- _John W Gardner

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Two**

She was tall, his height; green eyes, his color; and she had long, honey-blond hair. She was stunning. Or maybe just stunned. He stepped backwards, bumping into her, and as she dropped the basket they both bent to grab it. Sheppard knocked her over. She sank to the ground. He wished he could fall over that gracefully.

"I'm sorry," he started to say. But it was the color of her clothes that stopped him.

"If you were really sorry," she said tartly, "you'd be helping me up."

"Sheppard, if you're done flirting with your girlfriend," Elliot called.

McKay and Stackhouse, whose dismayed looks hadn't changed since Elliot and his cronies—Sheppard couldn't think of them as airmen—first came through the gate, were the only ones not sniggering.

From the ground, the woman peered around Sheppard at Elliot. "Who is that?" she asked interestedly.

"General Elliot. He's in charge," Sheppard said neutrally. Sheppard's sunglasses hid myriad opinions. He had always been good at poker.

She gazed up at Sheppard shrewdly and held out her hand. He helped her up.

"Why are you here?" he asked her. She was incongruous. Out of place.

She held up the basket. "They do wonderful weaving."

"Sheppard! Perimeter!" Elliot barked at him. Lt Colonels didn't do perimeters.

"I'm sorry for ..." Sheppard gestured at the ground. "Excuse me."

"Is it not an argument," she said softly, watching Elliot but with a sliding glance at Sheppard, "if a pilot run his ship upon a rock, or if a general mount his cannon against his army, he is to be resisted?"

"Sheppard!"

"I ... I ... have to go," he said now thoroughly rattled. There was no way she should know that quote.

As he turned away she said, "Those who aren't aware that the word 'rank' has more than one meaning ought not to be in charge of anything. I'm sure you know the maxim, Lt Colonel Sheppard." She pronounced it "Leftenant" in the English manner.

The woman gazed at him then walked away. He knew the maxim. It was something that his Nana always said.

_Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do  
than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.  
Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.  
_- Mark Twain (attributed)

The negotiations had gone well. At least, the General said they'd gone well. No one else, it seemed, had an opinion or at least, not one any of them was willing to share. McKay said he'd found nothing of interest—the villagers, he said irritably, made baskets, as though weaving water rushes offended his scientific sensibilities. Stackhouse, just as in every other meeting, had nothing to say. John Sheppard just smiled and looked at his hands. Distraction No. 4, the smile she could never interpret. Weir spent a lot of time on that smile.

She asked, "Colonel Sheppard, do you have anything to add?"

"Sheppard picked himself up a girlfriend. That was about it. I supposed he didn't want to tell you that one," Elliot guffawed. She hadn't thought that anyone could guffaw outside of bad fiction but there was Enema actually doing it.

Sheppard blinked at Elliot and said, "No ma'am, nothing to add. I was on the perimeter."

Lt Colonels didn't do perimeters.

Williams muttered, "Best place for him," and was nailed by identical glares from McKay, Stackhouse and Weir. Sheppard gave no sign of having heard.

Elliot kept talking. Weir tuned out and started thinking up various unpleasant ways for him … not to die, she thought primly, but to be made supremely uncomfortable. She had a team of scientists at her disposal and a city full of laboratories. One idea she had was so elaborate that she almost missed Sheppard's sudden movement across from her. He jerked up his head and was frowning at Elliot. It was the most reaction she'd seen from him since the General arrived.

"If they don't want to cooperate, we'll just have to persuade them, forcibly if need be," Elliot declared, tapping his sidearm. Weir's jaw dropped. What had she missed? This was negotiations going well?

Sheppard opened his mouth and Weir spoke up hurriedly, "I'm sorry, General, I don't know that's a good idea. Perhaps if I went …" Elliot interrupted her with a kindly, pitying, _damned ignorant_ look.

"I think, Dr Weir, you should stay in administration, here in Atlantis, at least until the President determines what role you're best suited to. I think he'll likely send you back to Earth. After all, this _is_ now a military mission. If they do not cooperate, we will persuade them. Dismissed."

Weir sat, her hands flat on the table and her eyes shut, too furious to speak. She was furious at Elliot and above all, at herself for not paying attention. She didn't even know if the "they" were the nice people willing to trade crops and woven reed baskets. As Elliot and his cronies left, her team slowly began filing out. She felt each of them pause at her side. No one said anything, though she thought she heard Stackhouse mutter "Moron" at Elliot. She might have imagined it.

She opened her eyes and looked across to John Sheppard staring at her. He seemed to be grinding his teeth. Weir shook her head at him and he stood to leave. Like the rest, he paused at her side. When he spoke, it was so soft she could barely make out the words. Even then, she didn't understand what he meant. The language was old and his accent suddenly weirdly English.

"I would fain know what the soldier hath fought for all this while? He hath fought to enslave himself, to give power to men of riches, men of estates, to make him a perpetual slave."

She had no idea what he meant. Sheppard touched her arm and left.

_Inside where nothing shows, I'm the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins,  
and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past.  
_- Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

He led the life of an experimental lab rat:

"Major, come over here."

"Major, pick this up."

"Major, what do you know about the Goa'uld?"

"Major, can I just get a blood sample?"

"Major, can you switch on this drone?"

"Major, I want you to ..."

And the ones that were harder to respond to.

"Major, are you interested in spending the rest of your life in another galaxy?"

"We need you. You're a natural at this. No one can do what you can do."

"This is so important. The benefits to humanity alone ..."

"All these people are volunteers. Everyone of them. A. Volunteer."

There should have been an "ed" on volunteer.

He had a case of books, one of them _War and Peace_. He'd had that one for a while. One football DVD that had replaced the worn out video. He wondered if he looked as bewildered as he felt. Until the moment he sat in the chair, he'd figured the little Scottish guy had been putting him on. Ancient humans with mental powers to switch on missiles that look like overgrown plastic squids, the sort of plastic squid found in pretend Greek restaurants. Alien parasites that take over human bodies. Little gray men. Visits to other galaxies. Humans on other worlds. Second evolution of this lifeform. Nana would have laughed. Ten minutes to pack eleven months equaled one point one. He clambered onto the plane and sat as far away from General O'Neill as possible. It wasn't necessary. Aside from ordering him home, O'Neill ignored John Sheppard completely until they landed back in the States.

"That's my direct number," the General said, handing him a card. "Call me."

"Sir," he'd replied, but he sat in a park, flipping a coin. Heads: Antarctica. Tails: Colorado. It was heads. Sheppard looked at the coin, pulled out his phone, and called General O'Neill. He was met at the airport.

"I told you to come straight to see me," O'Neill said.

"I ... I ... Dr McKay ..." He wondered if he still looked bewildered. As soon as he arrived McKay had nabbed him, getting him to switch things on. He didn't escape for hours.

_I am a youth inclined to ramble  
To some foreign country I mean to steer  
_- I Am a Youth Inclined to Ramble (trad)

He started reciting the entire DVD football commentary from the beginning. One pace, around the perimeter of the village was half a line. He knew it by heart and could do the whole game, including his own ad breaks.

"There's no such thing as American football," she said. The blond woman was sitting about four feet away from him, her sea-green colored skirts spread elegantly around her, a woven reed basket at her side.

Maybe he was insane and was only imagining her. It was a logical enough explanation—except that everyone had seen her when he knocked her over. They had certainly seen her when Williams pointed out that she was watching them leave. And, everyone had seen her when they had come back through the gate. Maybe it was the conversation he was imagining. Yes, that was it. Sheppard decided that he was probably going crazy no matter whether she was really there or not.

He walked past her, like the character in _A Beautiful Mind_ who got over his insanity by ignoring his imaginary friends. The woman not being there would explain, for one thing, how she knew his rank without anyone calling him "Lt Colonel." It wasn't as though the rank would mean anything to anyone in the Pegasus galaxy anyway. Maybe people thought it was his first name. That gave him pause. He should probably stop using his rank whenever they were out in case the Pegasus denizens got confused.

He stopped, thought a little more then turned back. "What do you mean that there's no such thing as American football?" he demanded.

"Well, it's just a poor man's rugby, isn't it?" she said.

"No, it isn't!" He gathered himself together and took a breath. "_Who the hell are you?"_

"Who do you think I am?" she countered.

"I think you're reading my mind," he said.

"Maybe," she hedged. "Manchester United, now _there's_ a football team."

Manchester United? What? Wait. He paused again, then snarled, "Don't change the subject!"

"Which was?" she asked archly.

"Who are you?" he snapped. "Let's start with your name, then you can tell me what the hell you're doing here."

"Why don't you tell me?"

Sheppard shook his head and walked away from her. She wasn't there and he wasn't having this conversation. He got as far as the end of the DVD intro before he turned back. He was wary, scared and exhilarated all at once.

"No, tell me about yourself, and about … them." He turned on the charm. "Please."

"About them?" she said, waving her hand around as though "they" would just magically appear.

"Yes," he wheedled.

She smiled at Sheppard. "I could tell you a story, if you want."

"Is it a good story?" he teased. He was charming. He knew it. Everyone knew it. He realized she saw past it but he tried the charm anyway. He sat down beside her and started picking at the reed basket.

"You'll like it," she said. "It _is_ a good story. There was an ..."

"Wait," he interrupted. She raised an eyebrow at him. "All the good stories," he said, a little embarrassed, "start with 'Once upon a time'." He shrugged. "At least in Disney films."

She looked amused. "Oh, very well, if you insist. Once upon a time?"

He nodded, relieved that he didn't need to explain Disney or films. She was laughing at him now.

"Then … Once upon a time there was an evil tyrant ..."

"An evil tyrant?" Sheppard asked.

She considered this. "More venal than evil, probably. I wasn't actually there at the time."

"You didn't seem that old," Sheppard ducked as she swatted at him. "Keep going. Venal tyrant, divine right of kings …"

"Precisely. Venal king offed with his head," she slit her hand across her throat for dramatic emphasis.

"Hurrah!" Sheppard threw his arms up in the air with a tinge of mockery. He put them down again, self-conscious, when she sighed at him.

She waited to see if he'd interrupt again. After a moment she continued, "The revolution succeeded but those in charge who were as bad as any king. Power hungry, bureaucratic, rules, regulations, _real_ tyrants. There were protests, pamphlets, leaflets, imprisonments, murders. Eventually, of course, the people grew tired of them and invited the king back. The next king," she put in hurriedly as Sheppard opened his mouth, "not the old one. Would have been awkward."

"You mean with him having no head?" Sheppard asked. This time she really did hit him. "Ow." He rubbed his ear. "I'm, um, a little more interested in recent history."

"How recent?"

"You're here, aren't you?" he pointed out. "I want to know how you got here. When you got here. Why here?"

"I can't tell you that," she said. "Grandfather paradox."

"I'm not parricidal," Sheppard said sarcastically, "I have no intention of killing my grandfather." He paused. "Besides he's already dead."

"So, if you didn't kill him, who did?" she asked. At his look, she said, "We left. We arrived. When doesn't matter because we're not in time. Where we are … it's a little hard to explain: we have time, hence we're here, but we're not in time. We're outside it; it depends where we want to be."

He thought about that for a moment. "You do realize that what you just said makes absolutely no sense, don't you?"

"Yes," she nodded. "It's complicated."

"McKay's gonna have a field day with this," Sheppard muttered. He scratched his head and asked again, "When did you leave? Why here?"

She got to her feet and held out her hand, hauling him up as easily as he had her the previous day. She held the basket, almost in pieces now from Sheppard's unconscious fiddling, and said, "I need another of these." Turning away, she said over her shoulder, "Did you believe me being here was accidental?"

"Well, it isn't me!" he shouted after her suddenly angrily, not knowing why he was saying the words. "It's not going to be me!"

She turned her head back at him and said, raising an eyebrow, "What is my name, Lt Colonel Sheppard?" She waited.

Finally, after long minutes, he said, "Overton," he said. "It's your hair color. Your name is Overton."

"Yes," she said. She curtsied mockingly at him, and kept walking. He didn't follow.

_I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused  
my misfortune, and you have caused your own.  
- _Arthur Rimbaud


	4. Chapter 4

_Oliver's Army is here to stay  
Oliver's Army are on their way  
_- Oliver Costello, Oliver's Army

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Three**

The gateroom alarm blared and Weir motioned at the technician to switch it off. Everyone was back except for Lt Colonel Sheppard. She was furious that he hadn't returned but the General said Sheppard was so interested in "getting to know the locals" that he'd volunteered to stay behind for further "negotiations." The smirk told her it was a euphemism. If there was one thing she'd learnt from Sheppard it was that you didn't leave people behind. It didn't matter if the natives were friendly or if there was a pretty girl involved. Pegasus's immutable Murphy's Law said that one person without back up equaled something going horribly wrong. Sheppard had explained the odds to her once at a meeting in which he'd popped out numbers as though he was reciting Shakespeare. Rodney had frowned at him, as though trying to keep up. At the time she thought he was making it up as he went along but later Dr Zelenka had asked whether Sheppard played poker. The question confused her until Zelenka explained that poker was just calculated odds. Harder than horses, but odds just the same.

"It's Lt Colonel Sheppard's IDC, Dr Weir."

She sighed in relief. "Open the shield." And waited for him to come home.

She found him later in one of the puddlejumpers. He sat at the controls, fiddling, following the holographic display easily. It still made her marvel that he could make any piece of Ancient technology work, though she sometimes wondered if he was as comfortable with it. She couldn't follow the display as it zipped past but Sheppard was clearly having no problems.

"Colonel," she said, though she knew he was already aware of her presence.

"Doctor."

He wasn't giving anything away. She sighed. This was going to be hard.

"You want to tell me what happened today?" she asked. It wasn't her best choice of words. It gave him an out.

"No," he said.

"You don't leave people behind," she argued.

"I didn't get left, I stayed," he refused to budge.

"Why?"

"Weeeell ... there was this giiiirl," he dragged out the words. He hadn't taken his eyes off the display. He sounded about fifteen.

Was that all? Weir was furious. "Anything could have happened," she bit at him.

"Nothing did."

"General Elliot said that you stayed behind for further negotiations," Weir challenged.

"I'm sure General Elliot is right." He refused to play.

Maybe he was running some kind of diagnostic that required his complete attention. She glanced around the cabin and realized that there was more equipment—stuff—in there than was necessary. Pillows and blankets weren't standard issue for jumpers. Neither were DVDs, coffee mugs, books, and clothes. It was militarily neat, everything stowed away, but there they were.

"John, are you ..." she stopped, and substituted, "Elliot seems ..."

"Fine," he interrupted. "I'm fine."

She tried again. "John ..."

He interrupted her again, suddenly explosive. "You know what, Doctor?"—there was a heavy emphasis on Doctor, warning her—"All I did was talk to a pretty girl for a little while. I'm tired."

She snapped back. "We're all tired. I'm tired. You think you're the only one?"

He stared at her then blinked as though coming back from somewhere ugly. "Yes, I know," he said. "I'm sorry." He turned back to the display.

Weir, bewildered, sensed it was all she was going to get. She got up. "Briefing at 0600 tomorrow," she said.

He nodded, shoulders rigid.

She waited for a moment then turned away.

As she got to the door, his voice stopped her. "Elizabeth?"

He hardly ever called her by her first name, it was "Doctor" most of the time. She turned back, suddenly horrified at the vulnerability in his voice. It occurred to Weir that he hadn't smiled properly for ages.

"Thank you," he said.

He didn't look at her at all.

_Turning, turning in the widening gyre …  
_- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

Everything eventually became pi, Sheppard decided. One swing—a movement back and forth—then into circles. He calculated the degree before the shift. It depended on the mood of the moment. Sometimes it was a straight 90 degrees‚ but occasionally there would be a lesser angle, occasionally a greater, but always that slow, inevitable shift into perfect concentricity.

It was a pure science, the discipline of higher mathematics. Comforting. Hail Mary, full of grace ... No, no, not that one. One swing. Calculate the degree. He could do this easily. No thinking required. "Sometimes," his grandmother told him, "you think too much." One swing—only the numbers. Yes, Nana, he could do that.

Shadows were helpful. One on the left meant a swing to the right. There had been a couple of times where his calculations had been off because he couldn't tell where the shadows were, but the light was getting better so whenever he took a bet that the angle would be just so he was more often right than wrong. Swing ... 90 degrees. Swing ... 24.25458 degrees. He'd been proud of that one. That one blocked out the voices completely. Hail Mary, full of grace. No, try this instead: 3.14159265358979323846 ... A voice interrupted and he got annoyed. Pi was easy but Nana would have insisted that he concentrate.

He couldn't remember the man's name. Just the accent. Millions of light years from Earth and there was someone with a familiar accent. It was odd. He hadn't thought of it before now and he wished he hadn't because he couldn't work out where he'd heard it. It interrupted his calculations.

"Sheppard? Sheppard!"

Degree. Swing. Pi.

"Sheppard! I don't even want ..."

Degree. Swing. Pi.

"Sheppard? Listen to me, Sheppard. This can stop. Anytime. We can stop it. I don't even want ..."

Irish, that was it. The accent was Irish. He calculated the odds of someone in Pegasus having an Irish accent. That took a while. It was harder than pi. He couldn't remember the man's name.

John Sheppard swung, his feet sometimes dragging a little on the ground, his face too swollen for his eyes to see clearly, hands slick with blood from the chains above his head cutting into his wrists, his body turning in slow motion circles.

Degree then swing, all to the perfect, pure tune of pi.

_Exploring pi is like exploring the universe.  
_- David Chudnovsky

He was sent to the newbies, the only military in a class of scientists: Stargate 101.

"I have a question," he said, raising his hand.

"Major." Carter was enthusiastic, encouraging.

"What did the Ancients call themselves?"

There was silence. Carter looked at Jackson. They both looked at O'Neill who was standing at the back of the room. Sheppard flushed, self-conscious. He tried to explain himself.

"I mean, obviously, they didn't call themselves Ancients." He paused. "Did they?"

"No, no, that's a good question," Jackson said. "Um ..."

_It's more like exploring underwater; You're in the mud, and everything looks the same.  
_- Gregory Chudnovsky

Pi wasn't working anymore. All he could do was count his mistakes over and over.

Top of the pile was Mistake 1: going to Atlantis. Thinking he could make a difference because he wasn't making one anywhere else. Atoning for his past. If he hadn't fallen for O'Neill's spiel and Weir's earnestness, he'd be happily flying a chopper around McMurdo in blissful ignorance. Maybe one day he'd be out of purgatory and back in the fray. Not that he wasn't in one right now, of course.

Mistake 2: having a mutant gene. Deep down he knew this one wasn't really his fault—more the fault of his weird Ancient ancestors—but if things didn't just light up or switch on around him, Teyla's people would still be in one piece, Wraith raids notwithstanding, and Sumner would still be alive. First mission out, he kills his commanding officer. A real medal prospect to be sure. There was no heroic saving the day this time, unlike the last, and no skinning through because a few lives were saved. The Army thought he was great but the Air Force still hated him. He still, after all this time, wondered why he'd been promoted.

Mistake 3: pretending to be a diplomat. He wasn't any good at it. Sure, he was friendly, charming even—look at the Athosians, they adored him despite getting half of them killed on their first meeting—but when it came to making allies against the Wraith, he sucked and how. Truth be told, he resented being sent out for food when his only strengths lay in lighting up Ancient technology and in flying things. That's why he was in this mess: it was too easy for him to piss people off and he did it all the time. He should be stuck in a cell all day so he wouldn't get into trouble.

Mistake 4: not thinking, caring too much or too little. He was a disaster magnet. He woke the Wraith. He flung himself headlong into situations where, because of him—entirely because of him—people died or nearly died. He may have a mutant gene but he hadn't been programmed to follow stupid orders that sometimes turned out to be not so stupid after all.

"Sheppard? Sheppard!"

The Irish accent was back and more irritated than before, wanting his attention again. Maybe he should point out his inability to speak properly through broken teeth and a battered face, and he wondered how he could point that out to the accent through broken teeth and a battered face. He squinted through the swollen slits that were his eyes, trying to blink away the blood that still ran in a major flood down his head. He had forgotten the reed people. The entire village sat cross-legged, huddled together. There were crying children and scared parents. He hated that it was his fault.

Mistake 5: he had come through the gate on his own. He needed to talk to her again. She wasn't there. The Genii were in her place instead. His luck, not so good: he didn't know how they knew he'd be there, if they knew he'd be there. Right now he didn't care. What he knew was that his father would frown and sigh yet say that he was proud of him, even though he really thought John had royally screwed up. Again. Though, his father wouldn't say "royally," it wasn't a word his family used.

He remembered the time when Ford—he missed Ford—tried to explain the American electoral system to a bewildered Teyla and McKay kept popping in with how insane it all was in comparison with Things Canadian. It threatened to turn into a brawl before Teyla turned to him to sort it out. She asked him a question about voting and he replied absently that his family didn't brook Parliament men. The puzzled silence from his team reminded him that there were times—just as Nana told him—that he really did need to concentrate and not just open his mouth and let any old thing blurt out. Mistake 6. Sheppard wondered if his father doubted him the way he doubted himself. He comforted himself in the knowledge that Nana wouldn't care either way.

Cowan, that was the Not Irishman's name. Cowan.

Sheppard swayed, then fell. He couldn't feel his arms anymore and he was pretty sure he was bleeding to death. It was like watching The Passion of the Christ except that he was the one being beaten up by the Roman soldiers. He should show Chaya that film and get her to make of human spirituality what she could from it. He liked the scene where St Veronica came to wash Jesus's face. He could do with that right now, a nice cooling washcloth. It occurred to him that Veronica wasn't a Jewish name.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, shaking him to get his attention. It wasn't needed; he was paying attention now. He squinted again at the villagers. He had friends who had died from shock, medics screaming into radios, too away far for him to fly to help. He knew the symptoms.

"Look at them, Sheppard," the other voice said. "You're doing this to them. All we need is information." The other voice, the hated voice. "You tell us what we want to know and they don't die." He didn't want that. This time McKay wasn't there to stand in front of the gun and save the day.

He wondered where she was. He didn't think she'd just abandon him. Did she tell the Genii about him? No. Was she dead? More likely. Gone for help? He doubted she needed it. All the same, she wasn't there.

He tried to speak and managed a cough. His head was jerked back and water sprayed into his mouth. He tried not to choke, then decided that dying by choking wasn't such a bad way to go.

"What's it to be, Sheppard?"

A child was hauled from his mother's arms and dangled from a wrist in an echo of himself counting pi. Sheppard nodded in defeat in the direction of the voices. The child disappeared, dumped back into the crowd. Hands grasped him and the face he waited for swam into view. He took a rasping breath and spat saliva, blood and teeth as hard as he could.

The unconscious could not answer questions.

_In the kingdom of the blind  
the one-eyed are kings  
_- Dead Can Dance, Kingdom of the Blind


	5. Chapter 5

_If our hearts were not over-charged with the sense of the present miseries and approaching dangers of the Nation, your small regard to our late serious apprehensions, would have kept us silent; but the misery, danger, and bondage threatened is so great, imminent, and apparent that whilst we have breath, and are not violently restrained, we cannot but speak, and even cry aloud, until you hear us, or God be pleased otherwise to relieve us._  
- John Lilburne, Richard Overton and Thomas Prince, Englands New Chains Discovered (1649)

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Four**

Ma'am?" Bates stood at Jumper One's open hatch, a digital movie camera in his hand.

"Ah, Sgt Bates," Weir smiled in an attempt to mask her panic. She needed to appear calm. What she couldn't do was lie, not with her ranking military officer—well, not any more—her former ranking military officer disappeared offworld. "I'm just checking …"

It was obvious she was going through Sheppard's belongings. What she couldn't do was explain to Bates why everything the Colonel owned was in a puddlejumper. She didn't know herself. Weir thought over the events of the past few weeks. Sheppard hadn't smiled properly since Elliot arrived, except for when she'd gone to see him in his quarters. Everything had gone steadily downhill since he had visited the reed people, as they'd dubbed them. His face had turned to stone; even the mysterious No. 4, the only real distraction to make an appearance had been, Weir realized, a distraction in itself. He was focused completely inward. Was it the woman? Was it Elliot? She didn't know.

"He knows, ma'am," Bates said. "The General. He knows about Colonel Sheppard."

She crossed her arms defensively. She was never sure of Bates. "What does he know?"

Bates shook his head. "One of his team overheard Dr Beckett talking. He knows, or at least he believes, that the Colonel went through the gate on his own. He spoke to me about it. The General's screaming charges and courtmartial. He's sent people to go through the Colonel's room for anything he can find as evidence."

Weir started, "It's all …"

"Here, ma'am. Yes, I know. I suggested to Colonel Sheppard that he might want to move some of his belongings," Bates relayed blandly. His expression didn't change.

"They were here yesterday," she gestured around the jumper. Bates had obeyed Sheppard over her during the quarantine. That had to mean something, didn't it?

"I told the Colonel two days ago when he came back from MJF 231. Some of Elliot's people aren't as discreet as they should be," Bates said, adding, "The Colonel asked to see the film my team took. That was a couple of hours ago." He held up the camera.

Weir sat down. She had come to look for answers. All she had found was the book Sheppard had been reading when he'd flipped potato at her. It seemed like years ago. The word she couldn't work out had been "revolution." When she'd read the dedication, she felt she was on the verge of discovering everything she'd ever wondered about him. She placed the book carefully back into its slipcase, as he had left it, and held out suddenly shaking hands for the camera. It didn't take long but even so, she nearly missed it.

"Who is this?" she asked Bates, pointing at the tall, blond woman in the elven-style sea-green dress.

"Don't know ma'am," said Bates, "but that's the woman the General said was Colonel Sheppard's girlfriend. She isn't one of the reed people. They're all dark haired and short. The Colonel played this over and over. Just those shots of her."

No, Weir thought, not one of the reed people.

None of them would be wearing Sheppard's grandmother's hair slide.

_No man has power over my rights and liberties, and I over no man's.  
_- Richard Overton, An Arrow Against All Tyrants (1646)

Bates was insistent; Weir was equally so. Bates said she and the team needed the best security; Weir was adamant that Bates could prevent Elliot going better than anyone. Eventually, after much arguing and her finally snapping "We don't have time for this!" at him, Bates agreed. Weir would take a team through the gate to the reed planet to find the blond woman and what she wanted with Sheppard. Sheppard would be hauled back, too—in chains if necessary, Weir vowed. Bates, as head of security, would distract Elliot.

Weir and Bates met with Elliot who was ranting about Sheppard and talking about going through the gate to find him. She flicked an alarmed look at Bates who moved into Elliot's view, opened his mouth and closed it, looking uncharacteristically hesitant. She had to hand it to him: Bates was a damned good actor.

"Well, Sergeant, what is it?" bellowed Elliot.

Weir had wondered about the truism of people being promoted to the level of their incompetence. She'd come across it in the UN often enough but she'd never really thought about the military before. Certainly, there were enough books on the subject and from Sheppard's belongings he had a lot of them, but up until Elliot came through the gate she hadn't met anyone remotely incompetent in the Air Force or the Marines. Maybe the SGC just got the best, brightest and most dedicated—Elliot hadn't been connected to the SGC. She wanted to know if Elliot was sent to Pegasus just to be rid of him.

Bates shuffled a little. He was smooth. "Sir, I don't know that Lt Colonel Sheppard went through the gate. It's more likely he's just wandered off into the city."

Elliot folded his arms. "You said he'd gone through the stargate."

"No sir, I said the stargate was activated and that Colonel Sheppard was missing. If he went through the gate—and I don't think he did—then he didn't go voluntarily. It's likely someone just tried to dial in. That happens occasionally. The Colonel often walks through the city at night before turning in. He doesn't usually take his radio—I have spoken to him about that, sir—so he's probably not even aware that we're looking for him. There're traps throughout the city, sir, something could have happened to him."

She hoped Elliot didn't pick up on the difference between someone dialing out and someone dialing in. The city PA system. They hadn't used it since Elliot arrived. She hoped he didn't think of it. Worse, that Williams, who seemed a little more canny than his boss, didn't think of it.

Williams spoke up. "What about the city PA system?"

"It was damaged during the Wraith attack." It was McKay, lounging against the doorframe. "Don't you people read reports?"

"Can it be fixed, Dr McKay?" asked Weir looking pointedly at Rodney.

"Yeah," said Bates. "It'd save us searching the city if nothing's actually happened to Colonel Sheppard."

"Certainly," rejoined McKay, viciously sarcastic, "I'll just pop back to Earth and pick up the spare parts I need at Radio Shack! Then it'll be fixed in a trice."

"Very well, thank you, Doctor," said Elliot, looking annoyed at McKay's attitude. "I'll have the security teams sweep the city. Sgt Bates, you're with me. Dr Weir?"

"I'm sure you don't need me with you, General," she replied coolly. "Sgt Bates is probably right. Lt Colonel Sheppard will be on his usual walk around the city. It's late, sir, and if you don't mind, I'll go to bed."

Elliot glared at her and marched out followed by Williams. Bates paused in the door.

"I'll keep 'em occupied, ma'am. Give me an hour to get them far enough away from the control room."

"Be careful, Sergeant," she said.

He nodded. "You too, ma'am, Dr McKay."

She took a deep breath. "Rodney, let's go."

They geared up quietly.

_In really hard times the rules of the game are altered.  
_- Walter Lippman

He'd said his goodbyes before he got to Colorado. Not in person: he had phoned instead. They'd talked in nothings. He didn't mention where he was, or what he was doing. They'd talked about college football. As soon as his father answered he nearly hung up wanting to weep. He hadn't dared try his grandmother. O'Neill asked him if he was okay, if he'd spoken to his family about not being able to come home or contact them. He'd said, "Yes, sir." O'Neill had narrowed his eyes and frowned, knowing Sheppard was lying.

It didn't matter.

He wasn't going.

_So goodbye, fare thee well  
There's no time for delay  
_- Great Big Sea, Helmethead

They were captured as soon as they stepped out of the gate. Grey clad Genii took their guns and equipment and marched them into the village center. Of course, Weir thought, the Genii would have to turn up just now. She thought of Sheppard and his quoting of the odds kicking in on Murphy's Law.

Weir looked around for the faces that she knew: Sheppard and his mysterious blond. What looked like the entire village sat cross-legged, their hands on top of their heads like a grotesque version of "Simon Says." She couldn't see Sheppard or his blond. Her fears grew.

A beefy, curly-haired man—Cowan, the Genii leader, from Sheppard's description—held what looked like a whip in his hand. He was making a forceful point to one of his men. The whip was wet: she didn't want to think about what dripped off it. He walked over to them but didn't acknowledge anyone other than McKay and Teyla.

"Dr McKay, it's good to see you again," he said.

"Can't say the same," said McKay clearly nervous.

He nodded at Teyla. "Teyla Emmagan."

"Cowan," she said coldly.

"Where is Lt Colonel Sheppard?" Weir demanded.

"You must be Dr Elizabeth Weir," noted Cowan—his voice was oddly Irish. "Sheppard is quite safe. For now."

She lifted her chin. "I demand to see him."

"As arrogant as ever, I see, Dr Weir," came a voice from behind her. She hated that voice.

"Kolya," she said. "Where is Colonel Sheppard?"

"You're not exactly in a position to make demands, Dr Weir," said Kolya smiling slightly. "I recall pointing this out to you on Atlantis."

She couldn't resist. "How's your shoulder?"

His smile faded. "It's fine, I thank you."

"Pity," she said nastily. "Where's Colonel Sheppard?"

"Well," broke in Cowan with false civility, "This is a splendid occasion. Thank you for joining us. Why don't you all have a seat?"

Genii soldiers pushed them down to the ground. A jerk at McKay's arms was the unspoken command to join in "Simon Says." Weir kept looking around trying to spot Sheppard but she couldn't. Cowan spoke with Kolya and came over to her.

"Dr Weir, I hope you won't be as obstinate as … Colonel, now is it? … Sheppard."

"Is he dead?" she asked, sickened by the slight smile on Cowan's face.

"That remains to be seen, Doctor." Cowan motioned to a couple of the guards. "Bring her."

Stackhouse leapt to his feet and attacked his guard. She shouted, "Sergeant, stop it. Stop!" He stopped. "I'll be fine." She couldn't show her fear—not now.

Cowan led her to one of the village buildings—a barn type structure. Inside it was hazy, dust floated about, except at the room's center. A pair of chains hung down. Like Cowan's whip, they were wet and dripping. Cowan lit a small taper so she could see the blood on the floor. There was a lot of blood.

"I hope, Dr Weir," he repeated, "that you won't be as obstinate as Colonel Sheppard. Not a Major. A promotion, was it? He didn't mention it. I congratulate him."

It was then she noticed the tiny hooks at the end of Cowan's whip. Not a whip, a scourge.

"You will tell your people to cooperate, Dr Weir," he said. "Take her back outside and put her with the others. We will speak to Dr McKay first."

Weir was pushed back outside, stumbling to her place. Putting her hands on her head was automatic.

"Sheppard?" whispered McKay.

McKay was next. She shook her head. A couple of guards jerked McKay to his feet but from the back of the villagers a drawling English accent called out to interrupt.

"So terribly sorry, are we interrupting something important?"

Everyone twisted around. A murmur rose from the reed people. Smiles broke out. Cowan and Kolya swore in surprise. Sheppard's blond: tall, elegant, a medieval vision in shades of sea-green.

We? Weir thought. She's alone. And unarmed. What the hell good will she do unarmed?

"Take her," Kolya ordered.

Incredibly, the blond put out a hand to stop the guard from grabbing her arm. Even more incredibly, he didn't touch her. She walked casually through the villagers, smiling all the time.

"Who are you?" Cowan snarled. "From Atlantis?"

"Goodness me, no," laughed the blond, flicking her head around at the Atlanteans. She was wearing the hair slide. "You must have noticed what they're wearing. My dear sir, I wouldn't be seen dead in those clothes."

"What?" Cowan was furious at her flippancy. "Who is 'we'?"

"Why," the blond smiled. "That would be me and, uh, him."

She looked behind Cowan and Kolya.

Weir's stopped breathing: she couldn't understand his appearance. It was Sheppard.

_Things are seldom what they seem  
Skim milk masquerades as cream.  
_- Gilbert and Sullivan, HMS Pinafore


	6. Chapter 6

_It's all here before your eyes  
Safety is a big disguise  
That hides among the other lies  
_- Hüsker Dü, Divide and Conquer

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Five**

They sat cross-legged, hands on their heads, huddled together. Some of the children were crying. Only John Sheppard was standing but he was all wrong. He looked older. The white scar running down the side of his face made his smile seem mocking and cold. She didn't recognize what he was wearing. It was clearly a uniform, the long coat neat and fashionable in a dark, angry-colored sea-green. And his hair was long and braided—almost woven. Despite the guns pointed at him his body language was relaxed. You've already lost, it said.

Teyla shifted next to her. "Wraith," she whispered.

Weir could hear the stargate in the distance and the scream of the darts as they came through. The woman they had come for glanced over at Teyla but didn't move from where she'd crouched over a huddled body that Weir hadn't previously noticed. Weir couldn't see who it was the woman was protecting. One of the villagers perhaps.

"Wraith!" Teyla screamed and the reed villagers panicked.

Weir didn't take her eyes off Sheppard. As the Wraith darts flew past, his head turned to follow them. She saw his eyes as he watched the darts without expression and she knew without a doubt that John Sheppard was insane.

He turned his head again and spoke directly to her. Even his voice had changed. It was cold and brittle. His accent was strange. He stared through her as though she was nothing.

"What do the Wraith call themselves?" he asked.

"What?"

With everyone screaming, panicking, frantic, he was calm. Almost disinterested in her answer even as he asked the question.

"What do the Wraith call themselves?" he repeated. He turned his head to one side, the ugly white scar prominent. "It's Scottish, 15th century from memory," he said mildly, as though correcting a favorite yet errant student during detention. "It couldn't be their name for themselves."

Weir couldn't work out why he asked, not now as the Wraith ships shrieked overhead. Idle conversation in the middle of a war zone.

"Names are important," the woman said, as if reading her mind. She hadn't moved and remained next to the body. Weir still couldn't see who it was. Beckett was working frantically. The woman had the same green, hazel-flecked eyes as Sheppard. Her clothes were a lighter shade of the sea-green color of the Colonel's strange uniform coat.

Sheppard turned away and lifted his head. His eyes followed the darts across the sky—slow motion, snakelike. There was no distraction for Weir in this. A Wraith beam swept across him and caught in the light, he shrugged dismissively. The beam moved on. Weir couldn't work out why he wasn't taken.

Doctor! Dr Weir!" Beckett was at her side. "We have to get him back to the infirmary. I can't help him here! God, Doctor, he was scourged."

No one, she thought of Sheppard, could help him. The Colonel smiled at her, his face muscles pulling the scar to a grotesque parody of all her distractions.

Beckett shook her to get her attention. "Doctor! Snap out of it! I need your help!" He dragged her over to his patient and it occurred to her that this is what she should have been doing, helping a team member who could be helped. She stumbled into the blond woman, who steadied her.

"We've called for a wee bit of help," the woman said calmly. "We're just going to take care of these first." She pointed an index finger up at the Wraith darts. "They're getting a little annoying, aren't they." It wasn't a question.

Weir looked at the green, hazel-flecked, insane eyes of the man still smiling at her and down at the man huddled on the ground. She stared back up at Sheppard's … mirror image … she realized. He tilted his head quizzically at her. Beckett's patient was John Sheppard.

"Who are you? Who is he?" Weir demanded. The blond woman looked down at Sheppard lying unconscious at her feet, then up at Weir.

"Mary Overton," the woman said, then in polite tones as though she was at a Washington soiree, "I'm terribly sorry, you are? We've obviously not had time for introductions." She didn't flinch as one of Wraith darts fell from the sky not 100 yards away, though Beckett started swearing loudly.

"Elizabeth Weir. Who is he?" Weir insistently asked again, pointing at Sheppard's strange doppelganger, who now seemed to be having a conversation with himself.

"Tommy," Mary Overton called. "Tommy love, do come and be introduced to Dr Weir."

He wandered over casually still talking to himself. He waved one hand around, as though conducting an orchestra. His eyes followed a dart and when it flew overhead his head swiveled to follow. His right hand moved languidly down and the dart dropped, as though a magnet had clunked onto a steel plate.

"Is he doing that?" Weir asked. "Did Cowan … Colonel Sheppard …"

"That beefy, curly-haired Irishman?" Overton asked. "An odd accent here, yes? They were asking Colonel Sheppard about your Atlantis. He wasn't cooperating." She made a small sound of self-irritation. "I shouldn't have left."

Weir could see men in Genii uniforms running in blind panic from the Wraith darts. Despite her own fear for Sheppard, of these strangely uniformed people, and of the Wraith, Weir felt a moment's satisfaction at the Genii's terror.

"Running around. Circles. Stupid people. Ugly uniforms, don't you think? Completely blind," muttered Sheppard's "twin" who had finally reached them. "Couldn't have known. Value of pi, turning around in circles is just a really pointless thing to do. Must try it sometime."

"I know, pet, concentrate now," soothed the woman. "Tommy dear, this is Dr Elizabeth Weir. She's in charge of Atlantis, you know. She's Lt Colonel Sheppard's boss, I suppose. Be kind. Dr Weir, this is Commander Thomas Rainsborough. He's in charge of us."

Rainsborough stared at Weir as though she was a lab rat. "It's your fault. All of it. Everything. Excuse me. Nice to meet you." He walked off talking to himself again.

"What did he mean? What's my fault? Who are you?" Weir wanted to shake the woman.

"I don't think he was talking to you just then," Overton frowned. "Then again, he could have been. One never quite knows with Tommy. He can be a little odd. And of course, he's a bit busy."

Four more Wraith darts crashed. Rainsborough was twirling, his arms out and his head back, his eyes shut, as though he'd joined the Whirling Dervishes.

"He's making the darts crash," Weir said with certainty.

"Oh, yes."

"How?" Weir demanded.

"He can do marvellous things when he concentrates," she replied. "Ah good, they're here."

A small group of soldiers—possibly?—were making their way towards Weir and Overton. They greeted the twirling Rainsborough with an incongruously cheerful, "Afternoon sir!" One knelt beside Carson, still working frantically on Colonel Sheppard. He introduced himself as "Dr William Walwyn."

"If I may, Dr Beckett." He indicated Sheppard.

"Dr Weir?" Beckett looked to her.

She held out her hands pleadingly. "I don't know, Carson."

"Please, Dr Weir, he can help," said Overton. "Colonel Sheppard is in shock. He's dying. I've kept him breathing but he needs …" She looked down at Sheppard and said quietly, "Doctor, he was scourged. Like the Romans used, yes? It wasn't the 40 minus one lashes of Jewish law, either. They did this for hours. They beat him. Then they used the scourge some more. Unless you have some way of regenerating skin and bones, you'll let Dr Walwyn and his team work."

Beckett spoke first. "Dr Walwyn." He moved aside. "Please."

Weir saw Sheppard's chest properly as Beckett pulled back and she stumbled away retching. He looked like he'd been skinned. She wiped her mouth and looked back. Rainsborough—Tommy?—was talking to another group. He seemed to be giving them orders. Were they soldiers? Weir was still completely bewildered. It was as though these people were from Earth. How could that woman know about Roman scourging here in Pegasus? Their names, how they spoke, everything indicated they were from Earth. That wasn't possible.

The woman, Mary Overton, walked towards her.

"Here," she said holding out a canteen. Weir knew she should be cautious but drank anyway. It tasted like water.

"It is water," Overton said. "If I wanted you dead, Doctor, you'd be dead."

Weir was trembling, with anger, with fear. "Who are you? Are you from Earth? You're reading my mind. And you're wearing Sheppard's grandmother's hair slide. Explain that to me."

"Nana Rainsborough's hair slide. It gets passed down." She smiled. "We're not from Earth anymore, Dr Weir, not for a long time."

"I don't understand," Weir said. "Wait, you're talking about time travel."

"No," Overton said, "not time travel. Temporal mechanics is probably more accurate." She paused. "Actually, not at all accurate now that I think about it. I don't think this is quite the time for a physics lesson, do you? I'm sure your Dr McKay could explain it all to you. He'd be wrong but that doesn't matter. What you need to know is that he's …" she pointed back at Sheppard, "he's ours. But you can see that."

Her gaze flicked over to Rainsborough. Twirl, crash, twirl, crash. Twirl, crash, twirl, crash.

"What do you want?"

"We want him, Doctor. Why else would we be here?"

"Why?" Weir asked bluntly.

"It's none of your concern," Overton said. She put up a hand to forestall Weir's protest.

"Please, Dr Weir, you really don't want to press the point."

"What do you call yourselves?" Weir asked.

"We didn't call ourselves anything. Our enemies had names for us. Insults and epithets yet they seemed fitting. Levellers. Agitators. Diggers. Amongst others. We adopted these names with pride."

Sheppard's book. "Colonel Sheppard has a book …" Weir started.

"I imagine he has several. Nana Rainsborough again, no doubt. I gather she liked educating people about the cause though her son resisted it all. I think we're about ready to leave."

"The Genii …" Weir trailed off.

Overton steered Weir back towards the medical team. She asked, "Is that what they're called? Genii? Isn't that 'spirit' in the Arabic? Hardly fitting, if so. Some got back through the stargate. Such an odd way to travel. And ones in this area are such a vile green."

"The stargates aren't green," Weir said thoroughly confused.

"No, I mean when one goes through them," Overton replied. "The wormhole effect, the green color. Solarized latrine green."

Weir stopped. "You can see the wormhole?"

"Mmmm, quite awful," Overton chatted, pulling Weir along by linking their arms as if they were out for a Sunday stroll. "What do you want done with the Genii?"

They reached the medical team. Sheppard had been placed into what looked like a stasis chamber, like the ones in Atlantis, but portable. It looked like a casket. There were monitors and blinking lights but he looked dead. There were, Weir knew, 206 bones in the adult human body. All of Sheppard's looked broken.

Bile rose in her throat and she turned in fury to Overton. "I want the Genii dead. All of them."

The woman raised an eyebrow and calmly turned to Rainsborough who was staring at Sheppard. He was rocking from side to side but his face was completely expressionless.

"Tommy, dear," Overton said. "Dr Weir wants all of the Genii dead."

"No," he said. "That isn't a good idea."

"I think it's a good idea," said Weir bitterly.

"No, you don't," he said. "Emotions getting in the way, regret later. And then you'll be boring. I don't like being bored by silly little girls with their knickers in a twist." He smiled the smile of a lunatic who knew he could get away with saying something appalling.

Weir used to think if she was ever insane she'd spend most of her time hitting her head pointlessly against a wall saying, "What? What? What?" over and over. She must be insane because that's what she felt liking doing. Except she wasn't insane and he was. There was an uncomfortable self-awareness in his eyes that said, Watch me, I'm crazy.

Carson looked startled, "Hang on, son, I don't care who you look like …"

"You're insane," Weir interrupted. "I mean, literally. You're mad."

"Yes," Rainsborough nodded, "but I'm still not going to kill them for you. Besides, most of the ones who did this got out first. No point to killing minions. It's militarily stupid." His eyes went glassy and he added regretfully, "And they don't scream as much."

"_Why does everyone run toward a blood curdling scream?"  
mumbled the Senior Wrangler. "It is contrary to all sense."  
_- Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

"Dr Weir! Who the hell are these people? And Sheppard, what the hell are you doing?"

Elliot. She'd forgotten Elliot. He must have come through the gate. Bates was with him and he shrugged an apology at Weir. I stalled him as long as I could, it said. She shrugged helplessly back. Not your fault, Sergeant.

"Who's this?" asked Rainsborough with the delighted smile of a two-year-old with a new and very breakable toy. The smile pulled his face misshapenly to one side. Sheppard's changeling.

"This is General Elliot, dear," Overton said confidingly. "He's 'in charge.'"

"Oh," said Rainsborough twisting his head from one side to the other dismissively, "one of those. Ignore him. He really doesn't matter."

Weir always heard about bad things happening in slow motion and she thought it was just people's perceptions. Everything, every sense is heightened during times of great stress; everything is remembered because people see more, hear more, all the senses are used, but time doesn't slow down, people just think it does. And she didn't ever think—despite her previous job and her current job—that she would ever be so stressed that a spray of blood would take forever to rise then fall.

_Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal,  
who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.  
_- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

He didn't know whether his newfound mutant gene gave him preternaturally good hearing or not but his ears had been burning since he got to the SGC and started his new job of experimental lab rat. He'd gone to all the briefings he was told to unless he was called out to switch something on or off, which happened a lot—he'd learnt to dread "We just need Major Sheppard in the lab." He'd learnt about the Goa'uld and the aim to find new technology in order to defeat them—that was why they were going to Atlantis, after all, but he was pretty sure he was missing large chunks of information because of his special status as "lab rat-in-residence." How many times had Dr Jackson died, for instance, and why were the last couple of times so relevant to them going to Atlantis? He didn't know because he missed that briefing in order to switch on a light. At least, it looked like a light.

Two days before they left he managed to escape the lab to get something to eat. The mess wasn't full but there were people in groups talking quietly. He didn't really know anyone even though he'd be living in these people's pockets for a long time. Too busy in the labs while everyone else was doing … whatever it was they did. He hesitated about where to sit.

The room was pretty much evenly split: scientists over here, Marines over there. He decided as an Air Force officer and important lab rat he didn't fit into either camp, and so sat in the middle of no man's land. He had a copy of the New York Times with him. Ignoring various stares and whispers, most of which mentioned Ancient genes and Afghanistan and lab rats, hence his burning ears, he sat determinedly down to eat his blue jello and read his paper.

Over to his left, there were a couple of Marine lieutenants. The older one, he didn't know. The younger one was Ford from memory. He had been in Antarctica. Ford had been enthusiastic and happy when Sheppard had passed him in the corridor—he seemed like a nice kid. A couple of tables over sat the sergeants. Two of them he'd dubbed Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They were like twins and he couldn't tell them apart. As far as he had observed they were always together.

The other one was Bates, Colonel Sumner's sidekick, who glared at him in perfect unison along with the Colonel. Sumner had obviously perused Sheppard's file and Bates had clearly been filled in. He'd got the feeling from the daggered looks that Sheppard going along wasn't Sumner's idea. He figured Weir had persuaded O'Neill. Did Weir always get what she wanted, he wondered.

_The way of transgressors is hard.  
_- Proverbs 13:15

Time slowed as she watched General Elliot try to get Rainsborough's attention.

There was shouting from behind. She could see Genii soldiers coming towards them. Running towards them. Running away. Behind them she could see the Wraith. The Genii were running and firing, running and firing. They had those stupid looking guns of theirs that made no difference to the Wraith at all. There were a lot of Wraith. She could never work out which Wraith were which, but in this slowed down, crawling time she thought, The big ones with the masks, they must be the foot soldiers. The ones with the tattoos and the dreadlocks, they must be the warriors. The officers? No, the ones in the leather-like coats with the neatly brushed hair were the officers, maybe. Like Sheppard's prisoner, Steve. She could think like this when Sheppard was dying or dead and there were Wraith not 100 yards away, when something awful was going to happen so time slowed down to almost nothing. One heartbeat took years. It was. Beat. Just. Beat. Like. Beat. That.

She turned in this slowed down time to find Sheppard's casket being moved away. Carson, the other doctor and his medical team, were all moving away. Bates was pulling at her arm, shouting, but time was slow so all she got were the long mouth movements. She couldn't make anything out. Weir turned again, this time to look at Rainsborough and Overton. They looked disinterestedly at the Genii and the Wraith, and they did nothing. They took no notice at all from what Weir could tell. The Genii fell to Wraith stunners, which were then aimed at Weir and everyone else.

And then the Wraith died. She couldn't work out how that happened. They weren't shot. No one fired at them. But they died. Sea-green uniformed soldiers moved through the Wraith bodies like they were meandering through a field of poppies. They strolled past the unconscious Genii ignoring them. One came up to Rainsborough and Weir lip read that the village was secure, that they'd taken a couple of prisoners, and what did the Commander want done with them? Weir looked back at the village buildings and saw Kolya kneeling on the ground, his ankles crossed and his hands behind his head. From her observer's detachment she could feel herself snarl. Rainsborough nodded at her, and pointed at the Genii commander.

Kolya was dragged over. Not cooperating. Making life difficult. These things dripped into her mind. He was shoved down to the ground. Simon says … She could see him looking at her and saying something in urgent tones but she was too far removed from time to worry about it. Rainsborough crouched beside him and started talking, a polite conversation that made sense. She could hear him in her head. It all made sense. He was terribly sorry to have to say this but Kolya had made life difficult for them and hadn't been very nice to their friends, the good people who made useful reed baskets. He made it sound so reasonable. No, he wasn't going to kill Kolya; don't be stupid, man, they didn't kill prisoners, Geneva Convention and all that. But, oh yes, that's right, they hadn't signed the Geneva Convention had they, because this wasn't Earth and they didn't like Earth very much, but they still didn't kill prisoners. Don't worry about it. But consider this, would you? Look at the mess they had to clean up, and there was all the post-traumatic stress disorder and the medical bills, and what an odd looking gun, how did it work? Like this? And like this? And he shot Kolya in both kneecaps. Don't be so annoying, Rainsborough said reasonably. Then he stood and ignored the screaming.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw another movement, still slow. Elliot pulled at Rainsborough's jacket sleeve. Trying to get his attention, perhaps. Weir didn't know if the insane took much notice of people who tried to get their attention and indeed, Rainsborough flicked Elliot off his coat like a bug and turned his back.

She could hear yelling from General Elliot about a courtmartial, shooting prisoners, sons of bitches—a stream of abuse. She could hear Bates asking what was going on, what happened to Colonel Sheppard, why did this guy look like Colonel Sheppard, who were these people? She could see Mary Overton roll her eyes, and shake her head and turn away from Elliot. She could see Rainsborough following the stream of abuse, still with the delighted two-year-old "It broke, mummy, let me break it some more" smile on his face, even though his back was to Elliot. She could see the moment where Elliot—stupid, stupid Elliot—pulled out a gun and tried to arrest Colonel Sheppard, except that it wasn't Colonel Sheppard because Colonel Sheppard was being taken away in his own personal funeral procession, and she could see his doppelganger put his head back and laugh. And then finally she could see the moment where General Norman Elliot aimed his gun at Mary Overton's back and fired.

Weir tried to scream a warning at Overton, at Elliot, but as Elliot's head went back unhurriedly with a look of complete surprise on his face, and a spray of blood rose in the air and then fell in slow, pretty red raindrops, she realized that there was no way a warning scream would ever beat a sharp knife in the hands of a crazy man with very fast reflexes. Elliot fell to the ground, his head almost severed. Rainsborough stopped smiling.

Weir threw up. And time sped up again. Someone moved up beside her and looked down at Elliot, still with that look of stupid surprise on his face.

"Tsk," said Overton. "Silly man."

_Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.  
_- Romans 12:21

* * *

Note: Rainsborough is pronounced 'Rainsbruh'.


	7. Chapter 7

"_And who are you?" cried one, agape,  
Shuddering in the gloaming light.  
"I know not," said the second Shape,  
"I only died last night."  
_- Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Identity

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Six**

Weir could only think of it as a casket. Sheppard looked dead but she was too scared to ask if he was; she didn't want to know the answer. She simply followed them, stumbling after Beckett. Sheppard's doppelganger was silent; he walked along, his head moving from side to side looking out, Weir thought, for any continued threats despite the grey silence of a battle completed. The blond woman was behind him, picking her way almost daintily through dart wreckage, Wraith bodies, and unconscious Genii.

"Colonel! Dr Weir!"

Teyla, her arms held behind her back by a green-clad soldier, struggled to free herself. Her face was streaked with dirt and blood. The man pulled her over to them, not letting go her arms. It was the first time Weir had seen Teyla not able to overcome someone. From what she heard of their gym sessions, Teyla kicked Sheppard around on a regular basis. Not now. He was dead or near to it.

"Please," she said to Sheppard's scarred twin, "Teyla is with us."

"And you let her dress like that?" muttered the blond under her breath.

The man nodded and the soldier loosened his grip. Teyla turned quickly to hit him; he was faster and held a gun to her head. Weir reached out and gently pulled Teyla away.

"Teyla, please. I don't think they'd hesitate to kill you."

"I do not understand, Dr Weir," the Athosian woman said hotly. "Who are these people? Colonel Sheppard?"

The man she addressed gave her a flat stare and turned away saying, "This is going to become irritating. I don't like being irritated."

"Dr Weir?" Teyla was bewildered. You and me both, Teyla.

"He isn't Colonel Sheppard, Teyla," she whispered. "I don't know. They have something to do with him, but I don't know how or why they're here."

"Dr Weir," the blond said. "We're about to take Lt Colonel Sheppard away to deal with his injuries. We don't advise taking him back to Atlantis due to the lack of adequate medical facilities. My apologies, Dr Beckett, for being so blunt."

Beckett nodded in immediate agreement. "We can't handle this, Dr Weir," he said. "Their doctor assures me they can help the Colonel."

Weir hesitated and Beckett said forcefully, "Doctor, the longer we wait … He'll die."

"I do not understand," said Teyla.

Beckett muttered something profane and jerked Teyla across to the casket. She looked down and lurched back, her hand over her mouth, her face green.

Weir said, "Sgt Bates? Take our personnel back through the gate to Atlantis. Where is Sgt Stackhouse? Teyla, get Stackhouse and McKay; take them back to Atlantis."

"Doctor, you can't go with these people," protested Bates, glaring suspiciously at the sea of green coats gathering around them.

"I'm going with Colonel Sheppard and Dr Beckett," she said. She turned to the woman. "Let's go."

_... we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which all history points—the realization of the unity of mankind. Not a unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the result and product of those very national and antagonistic qualities.  
_- Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, speech (184

Mary Overton waved her hand in the air and the reed planet translated into what seemed to be a re-creation of the 1851 Great Exhibition's "Crystal Palace," replete with palms, ferns and fountains.

"Where are we?" Weir asked. "How did you do that?"

"We've discussed whether we should be doing the whole 'beam me up' thing. It seems such a waste of time to have flashing lights and well, a beam, though I can understand it would be less disconcerting to our visitors," the blond mused. "We're on one of our hospital ships."

"A spaceship? It looks …" Weir started.

"Yes, it does, doesn't it," the woman said. "We have copies of the original plans. Spaceships, Doctor, and indeed hospitals, don't need to look ugly. The Crystal Palace was very pretty even though it was created by a royalist. Colonel Sheppard has been taken to surgery."

"Is there somewhere I can wait?" Weir asked.

"This is the waiting room. Dr Beckett is observing. I'll make sure you're kept informed."

"Thank you," Weir said, compelled by the woman's tone to be polite. "You didn't have to bring

me, I know."

"It was the right thing to do, Dr Weir. It's always important to do the right thing, don't you think?" she replied. "You clearly care about Colonel Sheppard. To leave you behind would simply have been rude. Manners cost nothing; we set great store by them. Civilizations can fall on poor manners, after all. Now, if you'll excuse me for a short time, I must check in with my friends to ensure that the rather large ship that looks like a squashed beehive has been sorted out. There's tea, coffee, biscuits. If you wish to freshen up, there are bathrooms along the side."

Weir was left alone in the vast glass cavern. She sank into a chair and for the first time since she was a girl, she prayed.

_Prayer doth teach us all  
_- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

They told him he was allowed to take one personal item and he wondered if they'd search his bag to make sure. McKay asked him what he was taking and he said a college football DVD; McKay scoffed at there being DVD players in another galaxy, so he pointed out that a DVD could be played on a laptop and McKay had said they had a way to hook up their computers to Ancient technology. Maybe the Ancients had giant widescreen televisions, he said. This allowed the scientist to rant at Sheppard's stupidity and boast about his own cleverness. The more McKay talked, the less he had to. He put his books in a large case marked for the science team. His American Recordings poster he sneaked into one of the crates labeled "dried foodstuffs." Everything else he wanted to take was similarly stored with a simple, "Hey, I was told this is supposed to go in here." The geeks had been too busy labeling, packing, and bubble wrapping to question him.

He wasn't going.

_Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.  
_- Gregory Benford

It wasn't like Earth hospitals. There were no tubes, no machines monitored Sheppard's breathing. A pale blue light lit his skin. He had skin. He looked no different now than he'd looked before. He looked asleep.

Beckett was also asleep, snoring softly on the room's other bed. They'd taken it in unspoken turns to sit with Sheppard. She had waited for nearly 15 hours for Beckett to come back. The blond woman sat with her for most of the time. They discussed Earth music and literature. Weir said Sheppard was reading War and Peace. She found the whole situation surreal. Beckett had come in, his face drawn and exhausted. He didn't say anything for some time but eventually ventured that he thought Sheppard would perhaps be all right. She nodded and started crying helplessly. Beckett patted her shoulder awkwardly.

The blue light across Sheppard became paler and switched off. He gave a small cough and blinked his eyes open, gazing across at her drowsily.

"Hey," he said, coughing again.

"Hey, yourself," Weir said. "Would you like some water?"

He nodded. She carefully lifted his head, and he drank like a—the term "dying man" popped unbidden into her mind. She shied away from the thought.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Tired," he yawned. "Where are we?"

"On a hospital ship," she said. She didn't know how much he remembered.

"Whose?" he frowned looking around for something he recognized. He recoiled slightly at Beckett's rumpled form across the room. "Whose ship is it?"

"Ours," came a voice from the door.

Sheppard said, "Oh" in a small voice.

He wasn't looking at Mary Overton, he was looking at the warped version of himself standing behind her. They stared at each other. The blond woman glanced from one to the other in amusement.

"We'll let you sleep," she said. She nodded at Weir. "Doctor."

"Um," said Sheppard.

"Later, Colonel, you need to rest," said Overton. "Explanations can come later." She gathered up her skirts, and left, pulling Rainsborough with her.

"I think you should explain it to me," said Weir. "Who the hell are these people, John?"

He looked into her eyes, breathed slowly, and after too long said, "I really don't think I can explain it, Elizabeth."

"You have to," she insisted. "That man is the image of you. Sort of …"

"Rainsborough," said Sheppard. "Thomas Rainsborough."

"You know him."

"No," he said. "Family resemblance. My grandmother is a Rainsborough."

"They're from Earth," she said.

He paused, again for far too long. "No, I don't think they are. Not any more."

"You need to tell me everything," Weir said. "You have to tell me everything."

"No," he said. "No, I don't. I'm tired."

He resolutely shut his eyes.

Weir, frustrated, decided she would tackle him when he was stronger. From the obstinate set of his mouth, she might have a hard time of it.

After they were taken back to the reed planet, with polite smiles and promises from their rescuers to "keep in touch," and after they'd gone back to Atlantis, she realized that she should have pressed him then. He didn't completely refuse to tell her anything, was cooperative in the debrief, but what little information she managed to drag out of him made her terrified: for Atlantis, yes, but mostly for Sheppard.

_They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little  
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.  
_- Benjamin Franklin


	8. Chapter 8

_His country was his pride_  
_His brother man his cause._  
- Australian Prime Minister John Curtin, gravestone epitaph

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Seven**

Weir was schooled in diplomacy and the art of negotiation. Political science was her forte and yet she had never felt at such a disadvantage. It was as though everything slid off them. She had learnt a lot since coming to Pegasus. In Washington she would have categorized the woman as an "empty-headed dumb blond socialite," but now she was able to tell that beyond the smiles, beyond the manners, there was a shutter that closed off any care for those left behind.

She didn't know what to make of it. They had issued an invitation for the Atlantis team to come to their homeworld. For a chat, they'd said. How about in four weeks, they'd asked. Weir sent a message home. State took a week to assemble a raft of diplomatic movers and shakers, and then shipped them out on the Daedelus. Anyone who swatted the Wraith like flies was well worth the effort, she was told. Weir wasn't so sure after she realized the timing. It took the Daedelus three weeks to reach Atlantis.

She asked Sheppard what the invitation meant. He said he didn't know. She asked if he was lying; he said no and looked hurt. He ventured that they would hear a request for help with the Wraith; maybe they wanted to get it over and done with since they were expecting one. His information was like that: in dribs and drabs. He didn't ever refuse to debrief but she, at least, could tell he was holding something back even if O'Neill couldn't. She couldn't claim to thoroughly know John Sheppard but she'd spent longer observing him than O'Neill. Sheppard didn't even skirt close to his usual insubordination. He was simply quiet. O'Neill had made disbelieving noises about them being Sheppard's descendents. Sheppard had looked at his feet and made "Me, too" gestures, which seemed to satisfy O'Neill. It hadn't satisfied Weir.

They stood waiting in a small, attractive room filled with plants and artwork, incongruously out of place on the reed planet. O'Neill wore full dress uniform as did Lt Colonel Carter. Dr Jackson was in a badly cut suit that had clearly seen better days. Weir wondered if anyone ever took him clothes shopping.

"What are the people you've met like?" asked O'Neill.

Weir considered her reply carefully. "They're ... interesting. Overall, they seem to be technologically superior in every way to any culture we've met previously. General ..." She stopped, then started again. "This isn't a negotiation, General, they're not interested in being allies."

"Then why did they invite us?" Dr Jackson wanted to know.

"I don't know," she replied. That was a lie. The Atlantis team was invited because they wanted Sheppard. They were only interested in Sheppard. The Earth team had invited themselves. "They didn't say why we were invited."

"And we've just tripped off through the gate to meet them without back up or even weapons," Carter disapproved. "We didn't even have time to brief after we arrived in Atlantis. We came straight here."

"Colonel," Weir said, "There wouldn't have been any point in not coming. They'd just go to Atlantis if they wanted; we wouldn't be able to stop them. They'd come straight through the shield. It doesn't mean anything to them."

She tried to explain it a little without letting them just how bad it could get if things went haywire. In fact, Sheppard should have been here. He understood them. He denied it, said that he was too removed from the whole thing, but she knew better and it frustrated her that he wouldn't talk about it. He barely talked about anything.

"They set great stock in the proper etiquette. They're very polite. And charming. They're very charming." Weir shivered inwardly; indeed, they were thoroughly nice.

"What was it you started to tell us about greeting them?" Jackson inquired, ever the student.

Sheppard had told her this much; she could see it in him. "Certain people aren't important to them. They don't care. Their priorities aren't the same as ours. They may greet one person but not another. Just take your cue from them." That was why she wanted O'Neill there. She suspected they'd like O'Neill.

"What do they call themselves?" O'Neill asked. "You didn't say in any of your reports and none of the ones we've met so far have said. There aren't any signs. Are we just expected to know?"

That was a hard one. They didn't really have a name. They acknowledged the titles given to them by their enemies. They embraced them. She began, "They don't really have a name," and remembered that even when they were killing people, they were polite, charming and nice. For some people, manners were everything.

Dr Jackson warmed up to full-blown lecture mode. His hands waved around furiously, he stuttered everything out, and Weir was inwardly amused at O'Neill's patient look.

"Of course, the whole revolution was crushed but their ideas really lived on. You only have to take a look at the Declaration of Independence. They were like extremist libertarians. Free trade, radical individualism, the whole works."

O'Neill put up a hand and Jackson spluttered to a stop.

"You mean, they are like extremist libertarians."

"Well, yes, I suppose so."

O'Neill looked over at Sheppard standing in the doorway. Weir noted the Colonel's closed face.

"Extremist libertarians? Really?" O'Neill asked him.

"No." Sheppard's voice was flat.

"Dr Weir said their commanding officer is crazy," Carter challenged him.

"Apparently so," Sheppard shrugged. "We didn't talk much. I was unconscious a lot of the time."

Carter looked annoyed. "Insane military commanders are a fictional cliché," she said.

"Better insane than incompetent," Sheppard replied coolly. He clearly didn't care what Carter thought. Jackson looked faintly worried but O'Neill's face was in neutral, his eyes flicking from Sheppard to Carter without expression.

Carter was outraged. "Colonel …"

"Carter," O'Neill cut in, "he's not saying you're incompetent."

"How did someone who's apparently insane get put in charge of their military anyway?" Carter refused to back off, still stung.

"Yes, that would never happen on Earth," Jackson beamed sunnily around the room. Everyone paused and looked at him.

"Fair point," conceded O'Neill then to Sheppard, "Well, how did that happen?"

Sheppard stared at him for a moment. Weir could see the inward debate flicker across his face. He said, "Unanimous vote. It's how …" and stopped, biting his lip.

"You do things?" O'Neill asked. There was no anger, no warning in his tone. Weir felt her eyes sting at its gentleness.

"Yes," said Sheppard. A ghost of Distraction No. 3 flicked across his face. "Everyone is equal." And with a contemptuous glance at Carter he added, "Even the crazy people."

_For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under …  
_- Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates, 1647

It appeared to be a shuttle. It didn't have the blockiness of a puddlejumper nor the sleek yet creepy gracefulness of a Wraith dart. Sheppard bounced towards it like a delighted 10-year-old who had just got everything on his Christmas list. It looked, Weir decided, like a dragon.

"Looks like a dragon," O'Neill observed.

"It is a dragon," Sheppard said.

"I thought you were unconscious a lot and didn't see anything," Carter said. The Lt Colonel wasn't liking any of this. Weir didn't really blame her.

"I haven't seen this before, at least, not that I remember." Sheppard was still grinning. "I can't believe they actually did it. This was my Dad's idea. When I was a kid we'd talk about the aerodynamics of dragons, so he drew a dragon ship for me. I was ten."

"You were ten?" Jackson trailed off, as their pilot came out to greet them. Unlike everyone else Weir had met she was short and plump, and looked happy. It was the first genuine smile Weir had seen from any of them.

"All aboard," she caroled at them. Her cheerfulness was infectious and Weir could feel everyone relax. "Cornet Johanna Lilburne at your service."

"Cornet?" O'Neill enquired.

"Equivalent to a full Colonel," Sheppard said. He didn't look at Carter. O'Neill stifled a cough. Cornet Lilburne looked about 15.

"May I ask, Cornet, how old you are?" Weir asked. All the men, including Sheppard, looked at her startled. She waved them off. Weir didn't get where she was by following all the rules, especially the stupid one that said you shouldn't ask a woman her age. She noticed that Carter didn't blink at the question.

"Twenty-four," Lilburne said, taking her seat. "Well, nearly 24: in six months … ten months—our months," she amended.

"Isn't that a bit … um …?" Carter asked delicately.

"Tut, tut, Lt Colonel," Lilburne said mock severely, knowing immediately what Carter meant, "our promotions are nowt to do with age, you know. There's a …"

"Vote?" O'Neill interrupted. Sheppard frowned. So did Weir. This wasn't the time for the General to be facetious. Not that Lilburne took any notice.

"Yes, but Commander Rainsborough says I'm an idiot and that he didn't vote for me. He says he abstained. How rude!" She sounded indignant.

"He's the crazy one, right?" O'Neill said.

"More often than not," Lilburne agreed consideringly, "but he's rarely wrong. Except about me, of course. I kicked him for that, the bastard."

Carter risked a glance at O'Neill and asked, "You can do that to your CO?"

"Sure, why not?" Lilburne said. "Don't you?" She flicked a switch above her head.

"Don't even think about it, Carter," said O'Neill.

Lilburne burbled along, "Commander Rainsborough said I was to take very good care of you. Actually, he sort of sneered as he said it but I ignored that bit."

"That's reassuring," Jackson said smiling at her. "I'm sure he's sent his best pilot."

The shuttle jolted awkwardly, as though the dragon had lurched to its feet, swayed in the wind, and then had overbalanced and fallen flat on its face.

"Or not," Sheppard, the critical flyboy, muttered.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Cornet Lilburne said. She peered out the window.

"What did happen?" O'Neill asked.

"We fell over," she said.

They managed finally, with Sheppard's instinctive assistance, to get off the ground.

"It's like …" Carter trailed off, gazing across the plain. She put her head on one side, slid a bemused glance at Sheppard, and gently gnawed on her finger. Weir couldn't tell if she was laughing or not. Carter always seemed so serious to her.

Not many would have built a world that looked like it belonged in Tolkien. Dr Jackson asked Sheppard wonderingly if it was deliberate and if they'd called the place "Middle Earth."

"Could be worse," O'Neill said critically. "They could've modeled the place on The Matrix. I really didn't get those films.' He waited a beat. "So the place is called …?"

"It doesn't have a name," Sheppard said. "We … they … couldn't decide on one."

"How long have they been here?" O'Neill wanted to know in "these people are getting weirder by the minute" tones.

"Sixteen thousand years," Sheppard replied. "Names are …"

"Important. Yeah, we got that," O'Neill said.

_A good name is better than precious ointment.  
_- Ecclesiasticus

Everyone was excited. The day had ended in a huge party for all the SGC and Atlantis expedition personnel. He stood in a corner and allowed McKay to bend his ear about Ancient genes and technology, until the scientist thought someone had put lemon in one of the dishes and went off complaining in a loud voice to anyone who'd listen. Sheppard suspected McKay just talked for the sake of filling up a silence. He liked the scientist a lot. Dr Beckett stopped by and spoke about the Ancient gene as well. It was all he was apparently. Sumner was with the Marines for the most part. Every now and again he caught the Colonel glaring across at him in contempt. Dr Weir floated around being gracious and diplomatic. Once he'd agreed to go, she hadn't spoken to him much. After a while, he went back to his shoebox-sized room and flicked through his photos, eventually falling asleep with his grandmother's engagement portrait in his hand.

He'd never fly again.

He wasn't going.

_Once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes I came to the Chief of Kufah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience.  
_- Sa'di, The Gulistan

"Dr Weir, how lovely to meet you again." Overton's smile was warm, friendly, charming, nice. "I hope you're well? You remember Commander Rainsborough?"

Weir couldn't see his eyes behind the dark glasses. She was grateful. He looked less like Sheppard to her now, but to one side she could see Jackson and Carter looking from him to Sheppard to O'Neill. The General didn't look at Sheppard at all. Rainsborough said nothing.

"How do you do, sir?" Weir replied. She could do this.

"And this is the Aeraneir, Dafydd Lannert."

Weir looked over to the third figure. He was tall, like the others, long white hair—disconcertingly Wraith-colored—tied back in the same elaborate braid as Rainsborough's. Unlike the others he was dressed in black not sea-green, though he clearly went to the same tailor. He, too, wore dark glasses. Lannert was frowning down at his feet. He ducked his head at them but didn't look up from his shoes.

"May I introduce Brigadier General O'Neill, Lt Colonel Carter and Dr Jackson," Weir indicated the SGC personnel. "The rest of the team is waiting …"

Overton cut her off, still wearing the same gracious smile. "And what are you a doctor of, Dr Jackson?"

"Um, archaeology," he said, looking startled to be singled out. He smiled back at her. Jackson had the makings of a great diplomat. Weir remembered his work at the SGC with the Goa'uld when she was in charge. Even when he knew it would come to naught he had still tried.

"That sounds like a useful skill," Overton sounded encouraging.

Jackson's smile faded and he looked over to O'Neill who clapped his hands together and said, "Well … Good to meet you folks. Really, really … good."

He quirked an eyebrow at Weir. State had wanted the first steps to be taken by the diplomats and she'd refused. Leave it to O'Neill, she'd urged. She surprised a small smile on Rainsborough's face and started to breath again. This might work. Except …

… Rainsborough's head snaked towards O'Neill and he murmured, "Nice uniform …"

O'Neill wasn't fazed and snorted. "It's gaudy and uncomfortable, but it's what I'm supposed to wear when meeting important people."

"Oh?" Overton inquired. "There's someone else coming?"

"You don't think you're important?" Carter asked sceptically.

"She's being modest." Rainsborough looked over the top of his glasses at Carter. Weir felt some small satisfaction at the Colonel's flinch.

Weir kept glancing at Lannert. She didn't know what Aeraneir meant; she tried to get Sheppard's attention but he was at his infuriating best and took no notice of her mouthed "Who is he?" Thankfully, Dr Jackson, playing "peaceful explorer" asked Lannert for her. The white-haired man looked over at Overton who seemed to be the designated spokesperson. Maybe he was mute.

"It doesn't mean anything," she said.

At Jackson's "Um … then," she explained, "The word itself means nothing; we made it up. It sounds nice, don't you think? We do that, make up words. The term signifies a sort of Councilor, though it's a little more complex than that. I won't bore you with the details."

"Why? Are they boring?" O'Neill asked cheerfully.

"Yes," Rainsborough said.

There was silence. Nowhere to go from there, thought Weir.

Carter said to break the awkwardness, "Aeraneir—it sounds sort of like the heir to a throne rather than someone on a council."

The room temperature plummeted as their hosts' heads turned as one to Carter. Lannert took off his glasses and stared across at her. Carter, catching the gaze, looked as though she wanted to crawl out of the room. Jackson looked horrified; O'Neill turned back into a General. And she had thought Rainsborough was strange. It wasn't just Lannert's hair that was Wraith-like.

"God hath thrown d-down the glory of the King," Lannert said in a soft, slightly stammering voice. "Shall w-we sit?"

They sat.

_Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive,  
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.  
_- Anais Nin


	9. Chapter 9

_The sin of property  
We do disdain  
No one has any right to buy and sell  
The earth for private gain  
_- The World Turned Upside Down, aka the Diggers Anthem (trad)

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Eight**

Weir stepped outside and looked across to the mountains, only visible by their white caps of snow that stretched up into the stars. She avoided looking down. She didn't know how far up they were but she couldn't see the bottom of the city even at night with all the lights on. Weir had asked Sheppard if he found the place strange. He had looked troubled and didn't answer.

The last session had left her drained. Looking at the mountains was preferable. It was a terraformed world, they'd said, and she wondered, if so, why they hadn't done anything about the frigid weather.

The chamber set up reminded her of Senate or House hearings in Washington, except the questions could come from anywhere. Lannert adjudicated. He wore his dark glasses and still looked down at his feet: an oddity amongst the odd.

On their arrival, Weir had asked directly if the Levellers would help protect the Pegasus galaxy and Earth against the Wraith.

Overton raised an eyebrow, turned to Lannert, and said, "I think protectorate hearings are your bailiwick, Dafydd."

Lannert mumbled, "Isn't that w-why they c-came?" and added that their request would be heard by the Leveller Council starting the next day. There would be a lot of questions, he said.

But after several days of questions and whatever responses the Earth delegation gave, Weir honestly couldn't think of answers that would persuade the Levellers to help. It was hard to strategize against an impenetrable wall of politeness.

What we need, she thought, was someone to volunteer to take the ring to Mordor, so the Earthers would stop arguing amongst themselves about the best approach to take. That thought stopped her. It was the surroundings that put that one into her head.

"Good evening, Dr Weir."

She turned. Rainsborough was standing a few yards away, huddled in a dark green greatcoat. Weir nodded at him.

"I thought it was boring," he said, moving to stare out at the mountains with her.

"I'm sorry?"

"Lord of the Rings," he said. "The book: it was boring."

She opened her mouth to object to his intrusion into her thoughts but what came out was, "Nice looking films, though."

He glanced around dubiously at the italianate Minas Tirith-style architecture. "If you like. I'm not that fond of marble."

Sometimes he didn't seem crazy. Back on the reed planet he'd seemed crazy, murderous, sane, bored, childlike, and happy. O'Neill had asked what happened to Elliot and Weir said unblushingly that he had died in the Wraith attack. She still felt guilty that she felt no guilt.

"Commander," she said, "Do we have a chance here or are we wasting our time?"

Rainsborough looked out into the darkness. "I like mountains," he said. He smiled at her mirthlessly, just as he had on the reed planet. "You're all here, you know. Everyone. You, them, us. Dafydd can tune it all out, lucky boy." He seemed to consider this for a moment. "But then, he has to spend most of his day in the dark. The eyes, you know." He swayed slightly, as if he had one too many at the end of a long day though she didn't think he was drunk. He added, "Don't get shot in the head. It hurts."

"You seem fine here," Weir said cautiously. His offering of these odd non-sequiturs seemed significant somehow. She wanted to show she was listening.

"The price of leaving, the gift of change. Everything has a flow on effect, even shiny brand new days." He recited it as a lesson bitterly learned. "Ask Sheppard."

"I don't understand," she said floundering.

He rubbed his head. "It's too crowded." He gestured across at the mountains. "They don't talk, they don't think … You should go inside. It's cold."

Weir, now completely disquietened, hesitated for a moment then murmured, "Goodnight, Commander."

"No," he said.

"I'm sorry?" She stopped. He was still mountain gazing.

"You have no chance at all," he said.

"Why?" Weir demanded, suddenly furious. "Why do we have no chance? Why did you even say you'd listen to us? Why give us a protectorate hearing if you're just going to say no? The people in Pegasus have never even heard of Earth. Neither have most of the humans in our galaxy. You're letting something that happened centuries ago affect your judgment."

"Have your governments changed, Dr Weir?" said Overton from behind her. The blond woman stood with Dr Jackson. "You," she encompassed the entire Earth delegation with a wave of her hand, "talk of economic prosperity and human rights but what say does a third world clothing worker, who earns less than a dollar a week, have in the Stargate program?"

"Is that what you object to?" asked Jackson. He held up a hand. "I'm not saying the system's perfect the way it is now but free trade across borders will eventually improve conditions across the whole world."

"For whom?" Overton tilted her head quizzically. "Free trade is supposed to improve conditions but what you have is multi-national corporations moving businesses off shore to keep local costs down because they can pay someone in a third world country a dollar a week, if that. You have indentured child labor making carpets; cocoa producers who earn a miniscule amount for their crops … even farmers in your own country get a pitiful amount. How much is milk? And what percentage of that price goes to the person whose cow produced it? It's rather uneven. Trade can really only be free if everyone shares equally in the profits."

"I grant you that," acknowledged Jackson. He was good at this, Weir thought. "But unless races like the Wraith are stopped, there's not much point in arguing over the price of milk."

"We haven't got to the Wraith yet," Overton said. Her tone suggested that the session would not be pleasant. "We're talking in Council about governments first, in particular, yours. What an interesting system where the popular vote doesn't actually decide an election."

"What about your government?" Jackson challenged. "What sort of government makes all its decisions by plebiscite?"

"A democratic one?" asked Sheppard. Everyone was coming out to play. Carter and O'Neill were with him.

"Not that we have a government. Not as such," Overton said to Sheppard. "It's a wonder we manage to make any decisions at all."

Sheppard shrugged in agreement.

"If you have no government, how do you govern? Who governs?" Jackson asked.

"We muddle along," Overton replied dryly. "We make decisions when we need to, Dr Jackson, and we'll get to one about you on our schedule not yours."

"What about the people on the planet where you met Dr Weir?" questioned Jackson even more fiercely.

"What about them?"

"You like them, don't you?" Jackson said.

"Yes, we do," said Overton. "They're very nice. We like their reed baskets."

"Well? They're in Pegasus. The Wraith came there. Don't you think they'll be coming again? Where will you get your nice reed baskets from," his voice dripped sarcasm, "if they're all dead?"

"Ah, good point," said O'Neill.

"Oh, I don't think they need to worry about the Wraith," she said. "Not anymore."

"What's the difference between them and the rest of humanity?" asked Carter.

"Aside from you and your ilk?" retorted Overton. "They independently asked for help and their petition was granted on its merits. You've taken it upon yourselves to speak for an entire galaxy, most of whom don't seem to like you very much. Unsurprisingly."

Raised voices from the Earth contingent greeted this, but Weir and Sheppard were silent. Rainsborough rubbed his temples and became even more hunched. They don't talk, they don't think, Weir reflected. She no longer saw Sheppard when she looked at him. The argument raged on but Weir stood apart from it and watched. She felt as though she had stepped outside herself. Ask Sheppard ... She'd been given a key with that, she thought, she just had to work out which door it opened, and if what was behind it would help.

"Colonel Sheppard," she said. Everyone fell silent, the SGC personnel frowning at her interruption. "Colonel, may I have a word in private?" She gestured towards their quarters. Sheppard blinked at her but followed, oddly obedient. Their hosts watched them speculatively except for Rainsborough who still looked towards the mountains. He didn't turn to her at all.

_Then peeled the bells now loud and deep:  
"God is not dead nor doth He sleep,  
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,  
With peace on earth, good will to men."  
_- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells

Sheppard watched as Weir paced across the room. One, two, three, four, five, six, turn. He hadn't taken part in any of the talks. Instead he sat on the side, part of the delegation but not taking part. Even his debrief with O'Neill happened after they arrived. They hadn't had time beforehand. O'Neill hadn't been pleased with him although he didn't say so. He barely knew O'Neill, barely knew his reputation. He knew O'Neill was a maverick of some sort and that he didn't act like other Generals—that much was obvious from their journey to and from McMurdo. He didn't see much evidence of anything at the SGC, although O'Neill was obviously popular. He knew that Weir held O'Neill in high esteem, but that was about it. Sheppard felt strangely anxious not to disappoint him. Weir told him she had made a full report—he hadn't—and from the looks and the whispers, the diplomats didn't think he could be trusted. He considered this as Weir paced—one, two, three, four, five, six, turn—could he be trusted? Truth be told, he didn't know himself. That question hurt more than it should and he could hear Nana saying, "Just be honest and true to your beliefs, Johnny, that's all you have to do." But Nana wasn't here. He knew what her decision would have been; he was just a pilot with a mutant gene.

Weir stopped pacing and he braced himself. Even so, the request came at him like a blow.

"Colonel, tell me about your grandmother."

He breathed out carefully and schooled his face to blankness. It's our secret, Johnny, don't you tell. "What?"

"Your grandmother. What sort of flow on effect does a new day have?" Weir asked, her hands clasped together in a plea.

For a moment he couldn't connect then he asked, "What do you want?"

"Commander Rainsborough is not on our side and he's the friendliest they've got." She seemed to consider the absurdity of this for a moment. "Mary Overton certainly isn't and I don't know what the hell Dafydd Lannert thinks behind those Wraith eyes of his, so I need to know. Rainsborough said to ask you."

"I thought Cornet Lilburne was pretty friendly," he tried. At the tap of her foot he shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."

"Tell me about your grandmother. For instance, tell me how her hair slide, that you brought with you to Atlantis, ended up in Mary Overton's hair before you met her on the reed planet."

That one was easy. "She told me they weren't in time. I don't know. I don't understand temporal mechanics. Talk to McKay."

"McKay isn't here. A pity, he would have cut through this crap. I'm talking to you."

He sighed, "Doctor, I really don't understand that part. All I know is what they want."

"You," she said, "They want you. Why?"

"No," Sheppard said meeting her gaze. "They want me to do something."

"What?" she demanded.

"They'd prefer that I go back to Earth. They don't think I should be out here," he said. "Look, my dad and I are considered strange back home. People think it's weird that we'd join the military and take an oath to protect something that in Leveller circles we're not supposed to believe in. They respect me for it but they don't like it."

"Do you believe in protecting Earth?" she asked.

He stared at her in disbelief. "I can't believe you just asked me that. What have I been doing?"

Weir said, as though feeling her way through his hostility, "But you don't want to go back to Earth?"

"Yes. No. I didn't think this would ever happen. It was just a good story that my grandmother told me as a kid. It was just a story."

She seemed to think about it for a moment, looking at him closely. It was almost, he thought, that she suddenly understood for how long he'd been conditioned to silence.

"This secret," she said, "it's been with you for a long time, hasn't it."

"From when I was little," he said. "A price for leaving, a gift for change."

"That's not what Rainsborough said. He said 'of' leaving, 'of' change," Weir said. "He seemed to be referring to himself and Lannert, and what they're like. I don't know: what do they call it?" She hesitated.

"A mutation," he said flatly. She winced. He held out his hands to her, the palms open and empty, and said unhappily, "The saying has evolved, I imagine."

"Tell me about your history," she said. "I want to understand it."

He considered for a moment. "I can show you," he said.

_We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.  
_- Adlai E Stevenson

Lannert was waiting outside their hotel. He wore the glasses at night, too. Weir had had enough.

"I'm a little tired of you people reading our minds," she snapped at him.

"Tommy s-s-said that you should see the museum," he replied. He still looked at his feet and she got the impression that the glasses and the shoe gazing was so people didn't have to look at his eyes. He seemed shy and weary and old before his time, and he, more than the Colonel's crazy doppelganger ever could, reminded her of Sheppard.

"I'm sorry," Weir said impulsively. "It's been a long day. And for you, as well. I don't think you sat down all day."

It was dark, and his glasses were as black as coal, but she thought his gaze sidled towards her.

"Thick s-s-socks," he mumbled.

She couldn't help herself and giggled. Lannert gave her a diffident smile. Emboldened she asked, "Museum? Colonel Sheppard said that he could show me some of your history. Is that the museum?"

"It has some …"—he seemed to be searching for the right word—"… information. Tommy said it m-might help." He didn't seem to think there was anything odd about Rainsborough being helpful. She wondered if Overton—whose name, Weir thought, should really be "Overtly Hostile"—knew. Lannert indicated down the road. "Shall w-we?"

"Information," Weir said to Sheppard.

He nodded. "It'll take less time to show you. History wasn't my favorite subject in school."

"Let me guess … Football?" Weir kept her voice light.

"Math," he said.

Oh, she thought. The surprise package that is John Sheppard.

They walked on in silence. Lannert was slightly ahead. Thin, tall, white braid falling down his back, she thought bemusedly, I'm following a wraith. The Norse wraith. One of the Atlantean scientists turned out to be an amateur etymologist and had given them a lecture about the origins of the word. Wraith, a 15th century Scottish word from the Old Norse vorthr: a guardian spirit. Weir remembered long conversations with Beckett about the Wraith's origins and Rainsborough's idle question to her in the middle of a war zone.

"It's snowing," said Sheppard.

"What?"

"We're here," Lannert said. They'd stopped in front of a plain white building, flat, and for these people, strangely ugly. He answered her thought, stammering, "History doesn't n-need embellishment."

She put her hand out and a flake fell into it. It lay for a moment then melted. There was something about snow, it made the world seem smaller and hushed. A sound remote and clear. She couldn't remember where she'd heard that before but in this strange movie set-like city it seemed apt. Even when she was a child snow made her feel safe and comforted. She had never wanted to play in it, she wanted to lie down and sleep. She moved closer to Sheppard. He moved away and folded his arms, head down.

She remembered how he froze at her impulsive hug after the Wraith siege of Atlantis. And she remembered Elliot's snide comment about Sheppard being her pet but he was wrong. Sheppard held everyone at bay. Their closeness wasn't an illusion, she realized, it was just one-sided.

_A troubled soul knows no peace  
A dark and poisoned pool  
_- Loreena McKennitt, Breaking the Silence

He lay in his bed, listening to the movement and the voices going up and down the hallway. He had dubbed it the "Great Day of Leaving" in his mind—that would be a stupid title he'd keep to himself forever. He had slept surprisingly well, but as the expedition's favored genetically enhanced lab rat he, unlike most of the other team members, had a room to himself. Admittedly it was the size of a shoebox—for someone with very small, bound Chinese feet—but it was his nonetheless.

He wasn't going.

_Generation has succeeded generation. Three decades have gone  
and the peace of the world is once again riven.  
_- Australian PM John Curtin, ANZAC Day message (1945)

It wasn't a modern museum. There were no interactive displays or computers. It was more of a document storage facility or a library. There were no pretensions to anything. The lights were dim for the most part but then, some of the things on display were over 16,000 years old.

Sheppard hung back by the door. Lannert hadn't come in, citing an early rise the following day. She asked about locking the door but he said it was never locked. No one would steal anything here, he said. She looked back at Sheppard. Thinking she'd understand more if she saw their history didn't seem to involve him giving her a guided tour.

It started with the Protestant Reformation in Germany; she moved onto Henry VIII, from the sacking of the monasteries to his many wives; to Elizabeth I; James I; and then finally Charles I. Where things got interesting, she thought. She read carefully through the Putney Debates and looked at the Cromwellian artifacts; she read all the Leveller pamphlets with their bitter accusations of corrupt governments and of an army's rebellion against its political masters. And then things got even more interesting.

In 1649, they went underground after the movement's suppression. Everything from then on was diaries, letters, eventually emails. The significant letter, the important one, was much earlier than she thought.

_My dearest John,_

_It was good of you to send the parcel to Elizabeth. Her cough is much better now we have moved to Hampshire. The northern winter would have killed her. I was sorry to leave even so, just as the union movement was becoming interesting. I have been thinking on our last discussion. No, a movement of the nation to the Americas will not do. We cannot condone a country with slavery. Eventually, when they rid themselves of this sickness, we may go then. Not to Europe. Not to the old world._

_The politicians are as corrupt as they ever were; the churches follow suit. The army still uses the purchase of commissions for its officers, no matter how useless they may prove. The best men will still die in wars to which they do not consent. The bankers, the industrialists, the men of power, these are the new gods. This place will sink into its own filth and it will die._

_We need to leave. A movement of our nation somewhere I agree with, John, but not now, not before its time. In the future if things go awry. And they will. All people of conscience must know this to be so. We need a new day for the offspring of our most secret of nations. If we cannot find a place in this world then we will find another. There will be a place in the universe free of this world's ugly taint._

_When next we meet we will talk long of the price for this leaving, this gift for change._

_My regards and love to Mary and the children._

_Thomas Rainsborough_  
_Year of our lord 1851_

There it was, she thought, the seed of an idea for a mass exodus from Earth. A shiny, brand new day. She went through the rest of the writings. They became increasingly angry, increasingly disenchanted, increasingly bitter, increasingly longing to leave and make a new home for their secret nation. Angry rants about wars, politics, money. She read their Charter, a long document laying out their beliefs and doctrines.

And she read the rules for becoming a protectorate—Earth wasn't unified, it was run by the wrong people: it didn't qualify. So much for history. She knew more about them but with this she couldn't see anything that would help her. She looked back at Sheppard, silent and still.

The writings got up to the early 20th century and stopped.

"There's nothing more," she said to Sheppard, still hanging back by the door. "It ends in 1916. Where's the rest?"

He shook his head. "I don't know," he said. He walked over to the display. It was a book of days. "Maybe they removed them for cleaning."

"You think so?" she said doubtfully.

He flicked through the book and ran his hand down the page. He stopped at the entry for August 22.

"No," he said. "I think they removed them because of this."

Weir looked at where his finger was pointing.

Born August 22, 1916, Burford, England: Rainsborough, Elizabeth. Later married John James Sheppard, United States. One son: James, m. Mary Walwyn. One son: John, born 1967.

"That's me," he said softly.

_In a perfect world the rights of man  
could never betray the rights of the land  
_- Karen Matheson, Move On


	10. Chapter 10

_Was there ever a generation of men so Apostate so false and so perjur'd as these? did ever men pretend an higher degree of Holinesse, Religion, and Zeal to God and their Country than these? these preach, these fast, these pray, these have nothing more frequent than the sentences of sacred Scripture, the name of God and of Christ in their mouths. You shall scarce speak to Cromwell about any thing, but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and call God to record, he will weep, howl and repent, even while he doth smite you under the first rib.  
_- Richard Overton, The Hunting of the Foxes, 1649

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Nine**

He wasn't even allowed to sit at the table. "Thank you, Colonel, I don't think we need you." The trouble with diplomats is, O'Neill murmured to him, they didn't require anyone else's input but their own no matter how many experts they had who could help. He could protest but at this stage the diplomatic team was wasting their time and everyone else's as well. If it hadn't been for their manners their hosts would have invited all the Earth diplomats to move and shake themselves off world. Rainsborough and Overton didn't even bother to disguise their boredom anymore. He craned his neck down into the chamber to see what she was reading; he was pretty sure that it was his copy of War and Peace but he wasn't game to ask how she got hold of it. He hadn't brought it with him. Rainsborough looked asleep. Lannert was flipping what looked like a coin. Sheppard wondered if it came up heads every time.

He could see Weir fidgeting. She wasn't disguising her boredom either. Or more likely her impatience. O'Neill, Jackson and Carter were across the chamber, also banished from the table. From the tilt of his head towards Carter's shoulder O'Neill was asleep, too. Yes, definitely. That was Carter nudging him in the ribs. Jackson was gnawing his bottom lip clearly realizing that things weren't going well. Sheppard had never caught the appointed Ambassador's name.

Bailey? Weir had said cynically, "Colonel, you're just not important enough for an introduction." Bailey was droning on about … what was it? Sheppard tuned back in at precisely the moment that everything went south.

"Obviously, you will need to destroy the Wraith completely," Bailey said.

Everyone at the Earth table nodded except for Weir who, oddly, looked anxiously at Rainsborough then up at Sheppard then put her face in her hands. If it hadn't been for the deadly silence in the chamber, Sheppard would have been hard put not to snicker at her. Except that there was a deadly silence in the chamber.

Overton closed her … his … book and said politely, "Beg pardon?"

Bailey repeated himself. Weir, Sheppard noticed, was now gnawing at her hand. He looked down into the chamber. People were whispering to each other, their attention riveted on the Earth team who looked confused. It was the most animated their hosts had been all day. Lannert, whom Sheppard had previously decided was too shy to say boo, flung up a hand for silence.

"Thank you, Ambassador," he said. "This session is closed."

"But," Bailey started.

"The session is closed," Lannert repeated firmly. "Council will reconvene tomorrow."

And they all walked out.

Sheppard didn't notice O'Neill, Carter and Jackson come up behind him in the confusion. Jackson had his hands in his pockets. Both he and Carter looked glum.

"That went well," O'Neill said dryly.

"Yes sir," Sheppard sighed.

… _and though whom many we did betrust have been guilty of most supine negligence, yet we expect that the same impultation of judgement and conscience that we have all professed, did command us forth at first for the people's Freedome, will be so againe so effectuall, that all will unnamously concurre with us …  
_- The Case of the Army Truly Stated, Leveller pamphlet (1647)

Weir stood to one side and watched Sheppard as the diplomats tried to work out what had happened.

"Okay," one of them said. "Why'd they shut the protectorate status session down?"

"Could have been the bit the Ambassador mentioned about genocide," Sheppard said.

His voice and face were expressionless though his body language showed the tenseness that indicated he was holding back his temper. Not that long ago she would have been assured that he'd agree to this and may have even volunteered for the task. Now she wondered if this almost stranger was the real John Sheppard, the one behind the charm and the passion and the distracting smiles. She wondered what he really thought.

"Thank you, Colonel," another one said. "I don't think we really need your input."

"You know," O'Neill broke in, "I've kinda had enough."

"General?" the man asked.

"He's the reason we're here." O'Neill pointed at Sheppard. "I want a word with you."

Weir always liked it when O'Neill dropped the dumb act and became all military. Sheppard looked mutinous but then he generally did when someone gave him an order. She wondered how he managed to get past flight school and wished O'Neill the best of luck. She followed both of them out.

"Right," O'Neill said briskly. "What do we do?"

Sheppard was silent. Introspective.

"Sheppard …" O'Neill's voice held a note of warning.

Weir touched Sheppard's arm. "John?"

"I'll see what I can do," Sheppard said quietly.

… _so that a demand of the peoples and Armyes rights shall be made by the whole Army as by one man, that then all the enemies to, or obstructors of the happy settlement of common right, peace and freedome, may hear of our union and resolution …  
_- The Case of the Army Truly Stated, Leveller pamphlet (1647)

His gear was laid out on the bed. Sheppard fingered the Atlantis badge on the jacket. It was stylized and attractive. He carefully put his things in the backpack. War and Peace went at the bottom, rolled up in his jeans. He put his photos on top after looking through them one more time. On top of that, wrapped in red silk, went the small wooden box, the one that contained his heart.

He had told O'Neill that it was the one place he'd never been, but O'Neill had to know the real reason one of the most qualified pilots in the Air Force was stuck at the ass end of the earth; the real reason was they needed someone who could fly anything and that they wouldn't let him fly anywhere else.

Sheppard looked at the rest of his things and what they'd deemed necessary that he take. He resolutely jammed everything into his pack, put the jacket and vest on, and attached the P-90 he'd been issued.

He'd unpack soon enough.

He wasn't going.

… _and their hands may be weake, and their hearts may fayle them, and so this Army that God hath cloathed with honour in subduing the common enemie, may yet be more honourable in the peoples eyes, when they shall be called the Repayrers of their breaches, and the restorers of their peace, right, and freedome.  
_- The Case of the Army Truly Stated, Leveller pamphlet (1647)

He looked at himself in the mirror and tweaked the collar. It felt like a second skin; he was supremely uncomfortable.

"You look fine."

He glanced around at Mary Overton and said, "I look like an idiot."

"You look like Tommy," she said. She pulled his collar into place and patted him on the shoulder. "Well, aside from the hair, the scar, and the insane twinkle."

"You know, I'm not entirely sure why he's …" Nuts, crazy, insane. He substituted, "Um … He seems okay here."

She paused then said, "It's mostly this place. It affects people in different ways. It can be physical. Dafydd's eyes, for example."

"How did … ?"

"One of our protectorates was under attack. Tommy was shot in the head," she said shortly. "He copes."

"I'm sorry," Sheppard said.

"Why? You didn't do anything to him," she snapped. At him biting his lip she said, "We'll have to leave if you want a seat."

When he didn't follow, she turned, saying, "What?"

"And you?" As soon as he asked, he felt like he was trespassing.

A vase flew across the room. He ducked and it shattered the mirror behind him. She hadn't done anything but fold her arms.

He carefully brushed the glass from his coat.

"So," he said. "Getting a seat?"

"Tommy asked me to marry him the night before he was shot. He doesn't remember that now," she said.

You were always diplomatic, Sheppard, he sighed.

_Diplomacy: babies in silk hats playing with dynamite.  
_- Alexander Woollcott


	11. Chapter 11

_But who could know if I'm a traitor  
Time's the revelator  
_- Gillian Welch, Revelator

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Ten**

She looked at the time—five minutes—and around the chamber. All the movers and shakers were there; Lannert and Rainsborough were standing together, Lannert nodding as Rainsborough said something. Mary Overton hadn't arrived. Neither had Colonel Sheppard.

"Sheppard decide to take the day off?" inquired O'Neill from behind her.

"I'm sure he'll be here, General," Weir said.

She tried to disguise the worry in her voice. Sheppard had been very quiet at dinner—distant. She'd seen him sitting with Overton later in the evening. Elliot had called the blond woman Sheppard's girlfriend; Weir had thought it was just Elliot's poor sense of humor but seeing their heads close made her wonder. Neither of them acted as though they were lovers but they had left together.

"Dr Weir?"

There was a touch on her arm. Weir turned to find Carson Beckett at her side.

"Carson, what are you doing here?" she asked surprised. Beckett hadn't been included in the team.

"I'm supposed to talk about the Wraith," he said looking a little "out of sorts," as he put it once. "These people are … um …"

"Telepaths, mostly," Weir said quietly through her teeth, smiling at him in warning.

"Oh," Beckett said worriedly, as if he expected someone to leap up and call out what he was thinking. "I hadn't realized that."

"You'll be fine, Carson," Weir assured him. "They're really very nice. Remember how kind they were when Colonel Sheppard was hurt?"

"Speaking of whom …" Beckett looked around.

"He's not here yet," she said.

People were shuffling to their seats. Lannert moved to the center of the room and said, "Please sit" so quietly she expected no one to take notice. Everyone sat.

O'Neill tapped her on the shoulder. She looked around to find him glaring in fury to her right.

"What the hell is he playing at?" he wanted to know.

Overton had come in and next to her sat Colonel Sheppard in a sea-green uniform coat instead of his own. He was gazing down studiously at his hands but looked up as though feeling O'Neill's glare and Weir's shock. He bit his lip and looked back down. Overton looked across at Weir and raised a mocking eyebrow.

"If we can start, please, General?" Lannert said. He looked from O'Neill to Sheppard.

Not a lot escaped that boy's notice, Weir thought. In fact, none of them looked surprised at Sheppard's transformation into Leveller poster boy. The color suited him. He'd even made a valiant attempt to overrule his hair but it had still plinked up.

"Dr Beckett, thank you for making the time to talk to us," Lannert said.

Beckett still looked worried but smiled and nodded.

"We were hoping that you'd tell us something about the Wraith," Lannert continued. "Several people have questions. Some aren't here but are watching this session elsewhere."

"Sir, if I may interrupt for a moment," Ambassador Bailey, the lead mover and shaker, interjected.

"I'd rather you didn't," replied Lannert coolly.

Bailey went red. Weir smirked inwardly. Bailey annoyed her even more than Elliot. She had thought the General arrogant but Bailey was far more pompous and grating. O'Neill had rolled his eyes when the Ambassador had come through the gate and muttered something to Dr Jackson about gate accidents never happening when you wanted them.

"I'm sorry, sir," Bailey ploughed on regardless. "We weren't notified that Dr Beckett was testifying today."

"This isn't a courtroom, Ambassador," Overton said. "We just want to know about the Wraith and Dr Beckett is the best person to tell us about their physiology. We understand he has performed several autopsies on Wraith. Is that correct, Doctor?"

"Aye, that's right," Beckett said clearly relieved to see what he thought was a friendly face.

"But …" Bailey tried.

"Ambassador?"

It was Rainsborough.

"Commander, yes?" Bailey said.

"Shut up," Rainsborough said. It was said so lazily that Bailey blinked several times before he perceived the threat. Rainsborough peered over his dark glasses and smiled, his face twisting. Bailey sat back and said nothing. Maybe he couldn't. Beckett cleared his throat.

"What is it you'd like to know?" the doctor asked.

"Dr Weir told us your contention is that the Wraith evolved from some type of combination of insect and human?"

"Aye, it seems likely," Beckett nodded.

"How?" a voice came from behind. "Seems a trifle unlikely to me."

"No more so than the effect this planet has had on you," put in Weir.

"Touché, Doctor," said the voice.

"My hypothesis is that the Irratus bugs, such as the one that attached itself to Colonel Sheppard, incorporated human DNA into theirs and evolved into the Wraith as we know them today. This took some time, obviously." Beckett kept talking.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, the bug that what?" asked Overton edging slightly away from Sheppard, who in turn glared a "You just had to say something" look at Beckett.

"Um," said Beckett. "There was this sort of very large insect …"

"Nevermind, Doctor," Lannert interrupted. "I'm sure Colonel Sheppard can explain it later."

Weir snickered when she heard a faint, plaintive "I'd rather not" from across the room. So did Beckett.

"So, the Wraith feed on the … life force? … of humans," came another voice.

"Yes," said Beckett. "We're not yet sure how it works other than an enzyme is injected into humans which allows the Wraith to suck the life from what they're feeding on. It slows down the human metabolism, preventing shock, so the Wraith can feed longer."

"Why humans?" asked someone to his right. "Why not something else?"

"We captured a Wraith but he only wanted to feed on humans. He was prepared to starve otherwise," said Beckett.

"When did the Wraith evolve?"

"We're not sure. Sometime after the Ancients arrived in Pegasus. The Ancients seeded the Pegasus worlds with human life, one of which we believe was the planet the Irratus bugs are from," replied Beckett.

"And, I think Dr Weir, you said the Wraith's war with these Ancients of yours was around 10,000 years ago?" asked a woman on her left.

"They're not my Ancients but yes, that's right," said Weir. "At least, the Ancients returned to Earth around 10,000 years ago. They couldn't see a way to win the war."

"Leaving the humans in Pegasus to fend for themselves."

_Then in despair I bowed my head,  
"There is no peace on earth," I said,  
"For hate is strong and mocks the song  
Of peace on earth, good will to men."  
_- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells

"I'm sorry?" Weir asked, not sure where this was going.

"I'm not sure I like these Ancients of yours, Dr Weir," said Overton. "They skipped town, didn't they? They abandoned their city to head for safety but they left all the Pegasus humans for the Wraith to use as a herd."

Weir swallowed. "I can't speak as to why they did that, but we woke up the Wraith and we have a responsibility to the Pegasus humans. We can try to correct the Ancients's error."

"You have a responsibility, Doctor," drawled Rainsborough, "not us."

Weir saw Overton shush Sheppard as he shifted in his seat.

"Can you tell us, Dr Beckett, what the Wraith fed on prior to shifting their diet to humans?"

Weir couldn't tell where the voice came from. Above, in the gallery perhaps.

"Good question," observed another to her left. The speaker was a child of about twelve. She was with her parents from the resemblance. "I've been wondering that myself. Presumably, after the Wraith evolved on the insect planet they had to eat something before discovering space flight. Which is another subject entirely, of course."

"I don't know anything about their early feeding habits," said Beckett warily, looking like a rabbit in headlights at the little girl's matter-of-factness.

"And more importantly," she asked him, "what made them stop feeding on their regular food source?"

"It's possible that they just preferred humans," said Beckett. "I'm guessing, of course. I have no proof."

"The Wraith are a sentient species, Dr Beckett. They know humans are sentient, so presumably they knew the Ancients were as well. When I meet a new, sentient species I don't immediately try them out to see if they taste good. Mmmm, yummy, new species—must try one with wasabi sauce." The girl rolled her eyes and asked, "Do you think the Wraith did that with humans?"

"I don't know," said Beckett.

Weir suddenly realized what she was implying.

"Wait, you're suggesting the Ancients destroyed the Wraith's original food source," she said.

She felt silly talking like this to a child but she remembered Sheppard saying contemptuously, "Everyone is equal."

"Is that possible?" asked the girl's father.

"I have considered this as a distinct possibility," said Beckett slowly. "Accidentally or deliberately, I don't know."

"So," put in Overton, "we have something of a conundrum, you see. We will not destroy an entire species at anyone's request but clearly, if your Pegasus humans are to survive, the Wraith need to be persuaded into another food source, their original food source if available or another. What would you suggest, Dr Beckett?"

"Not just Pegasus," said Weir, "Earth is also at risk."

"That doesn't bother us," said Rainsborough.

"You've been here … what … 16,000 years?" said O'Neill clearly annoyed. "Little long to be holding a grudge, isn't it?"

"That doesn't bother us either," Rainsborough replied.

"Wait."

This time it was Dr Jackson. Weir had been a little surprised by his silence. From her time working with him, she knew that Jackson was the passionate defender of all things Earth, yet he'd been very quiet. Absorbing it all, taking notes. She wanted to ask him if he felt as out of his depth as she did.

"Dr Jackson?"

"Does that you're questioning this mean you're willing to help us?" Jackson asked.

"No, it means we're interested in hearing what you're going to do to help yourselves before we decide what we will do. We're surprised you don't seem to have considered the Wraith's original food source," said Lannert. Weir noticed how he lost his shyness when debating. Lannert motioned with his hand. "Would anyone care to say anything else?"

As a babble of voices came from the Earth delegation, Weir saw Overton touch Sheppard's hand and nod at him. Sheppard stood.

"I do. I wish to petition this Council."

"Your delegation doesn't recognize you as having any authority, Colonel," challenged Lannert, "What right have you to petition this Council?"

"We were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons," Sheppard said, "now by a General, a Court Martial, and a House of Commons; and we pray you what is the difference?"

"Even the devil can quote Scripture, I believe the saying goes," piped up Cornet Lilburne. Weir hadn't seen her at any previous session. For once, she wasn't smiling.

Sheppard moved forward into the center of the room. Only his hands flexing stiffly told Weir how nervous he was. There were cameras in the room projecting the hearing to the wider audience, Weir had been told, but she hadn't been able to spot any. As Sheppard looked up and around she realized he knew exactly where they were.

His voice was mocking.

"O Cromwell, O Ireton, how hath a little time and success changed the honest shape of so many officers. Who then would have thought the Council would have moved for an act to put men to death for petitioning? Who would have thought to have seen soldiers—by their order—to ride with their faces towards their horses' tails, to have their swords broken over their heads, and to be cashiered, and that for petitioning, and claiming their just right and title to the same?"

There was silence in the room, broken by O'Neill's whisper to Weir of "What's he saying?"

"Shhh," she hushed him.

"What's going on?" muttered back O'Neill.

"General," Weir said with a glimmer of hope as Lilburne smiled and nodded approvingly at Sheppard, "you wanted him to do something. He's doing something."

"Good answer," said someone in the gallery. "I'm happy to hear Lt Colonel Sheppard's petition."

"Seconded," said Lilburne.

"You have the floor, Colonel," said Lannert.

_All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.  
_- Mahatma Gandhi

He put on his backpack and made his way through Stargate Command, past excitedly chattering scientists, Marines, Air Force personnel, and others, to the gateroom. He walked in and greeted Sumner with a muted, "Colonel."

Sumner looked like he wanted to say something but instead gave him the flat stare Sheppard suspected he had perfected especially for recalcitrant Majors. The fury, hurt, and embarrassment he thought he'd left behind at his banishment to Antarctica rose, threatening to overwhelm him; he really, really, really wanted to laugh.

He definitely wasn't going.

_If I do speak my soul and conscience, I do think that there is not an objection made, but that it hath been answered; but the speeches are so long. I am sorry for some passion and some reflections, and I wish where it is most taken amiss, the cause had not been given.  
_- Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates (1647)

Sheppard took a breath.

"I was asked to go on the Atlantis expedition because I'm a mutant. I have what's known as the Ancient Technology Activator gene. It means I can switch on pretty much all Ancient technology without thinking about it. I don't know how it works.

"I didn't want to go. Right up to the point where I stepped through the Stargate I wasn't going. I still don't want to be in Atlantis—I keep screwing things up." He shrugged an apology at Weir. "On our first mission, I killed my commanding officer and woke the Wraith. The reason they're here," he pointed to the diplomats, "asking for help, is because I woke the Wraith."

"I like a good guilt trip as much as anyone, Colonel Sheppard," said Overton, "but I believe you're taking a little too much on yourself. Dr Weir?"

"The Wraith would have woken anyway," Weir said. "In five hundred years, five years or five days—there's no way to know."

"Why didn't you return permanently to Earth when you had the chance, Colonel," someone asked, "after Atlantis was besieged and you drove them off?"

"The Ancients ran. I wasn't about to leave my mess behind," Sheppard said. He paused. "My father was an apostate."

"A famous one," agreed Lilburne. "We have his letters."

"He didn't believe in any of this."

"And you?"

"When Dad was posted overseas, I was left with my Nana," said Sheppard. "You know her."

"Also famous," came another voice. "Where do you stand?"

"I wanted to fly," Sheppard said. "It was all I wanted. I believed Nana, I believed Dad, but I didn't want either. I didn't believe this would happen."

"And now?"

"Thomas was always my favorite disciple," he said. "I'm here, aren't I?"

He paused again.

"I've seen Wraith cullings, and I've seen them feed. I don't know if they can eat anything else; I don't know if they even have another food source, and right now I don't care. Right now I'm wondering if we" he pointed at his sea-green uniform coat and around the room, "haven't done what the Ancients did and walk away from our problems leaving everyone else to fend for themselves."

Everyone in the chamber was focused intently on him. There were nods, shaking of heads, but no one spoke until Lilburne said, "We're not interested in Earth."

"You're not from Earth," pointed out Sheppard. "I am. My family is still there, for one thing."

"When our people left, Earth was close to choking on its own corruption," another voice said. "The people don't run Earth, the Cromwells and the Iretons run it for themselves. But this time, they're not the government. They have no need of governments except to do their bidding. They buy governments. And they will bleed the planet dry. When they're done mayhap the apathetic masses will finally do something but by then it will be too late. We're well out of it and will allow the place to die, as it deserves. There can be no agreement."

There were murmurs of "no agreement" across the room.

"We will not return to a situation where the people have no power. Why should we put ourselves on the line for Earth?"

"Even if you don't care about Earth, even if the Charter doesn't allow for a non-united, non-peaceful, non-democratic Earth to become a protectorate, you still have to consider my petition on its merits," countered Sheppard. "The Pegasus galaxy is many worlds but none of their populations are large enough not to be united." He took a deep breath and said, "My petition is not for Earth."

He could see Weir's jaw drop. O'Neill and Carter looked furious. Jackson scribbled something down.

"Would you save the Genii, Colonel?" Overton asked. "How many times will they get away with murder or near? Our doctors are good but it did take a little time to put your skin back on. I got there just in time, if you recall. Ah, but you can't, can you, you were dying at the time. They would have been happy to slaughter the entire village just to get you to talk."

"I … I …" Sheppard rocked on his heels. That was a good point. He remembered a child being dangled by a wrist while a gun was placed against the boy's head. He remembered a mother screaming in desperation. Say goodbye to Dr Weir. "I'd have to think about the Genii. Admittedly."

"Hmmm, yes," Overton said. She sat back.

"At least," he waved his hand, "at least, some of them. A lot of the people we've met are completely paranoid about the Wraith. The Genii are a product of thousands of years of cullings. I don't like any of them but being culled every now and again for food tends to make people strange, I suppose."

He was good at understatement.

"I will point out to the chamber that the Atlantis stargate is the only one in Pegasus capable of reaching Earth. Whether we intend to or not, if we protect Atlantis, we will protect Earth by default," said Rainsborough lounging in his seat.

Sheppard's mouth thinned; he had been hoping no one would pick that up.

"Look, I won't run away. I can't," he said, almost desperately. "And I can't do it alone. I need help. I can't walk away as the Ancients did. As we will. As you did."

Rainsborough rapped on the bench. "Call it," he said.

"Do you petition, Colonel Sheppard?" asked Lannert formally.

"Yes," said Sheppard.

"What is your petition, sir?"

"I petition that my house assist the people of Pegasus to live without fear of Wraith culling," he replied. It was as broad as he could make it. Whatever was decided, it would be on their terms anyway; no being forced away to foreign wars without consent for them.

"Is there a second for Colonel Sheppard's petition?" Lannert asked.

There was no movement in the chamber. No one spoke. Sheppard breathed nervously, almost on the verge of hyperventilation until Overton stood.

"I will second the petition," she said, her skirts rustling as she moved. "I am persuaded enough by the argument to consider it further."

"Are you sure that's what you're persuaded by?" asked Lilburne with a sharp glance at Rainsborough, whose bored expression didn't change, though he looked over at Sheppard and then to Overton who lifted her chin and folded her arms.

He hadn't thought … They didn't think … Did they? Oh. Crap. Sheppard stopped breathing completely. He left with Overton last night. Weir had glared at him.

"Settle down, kitten," Rainsborough said to Lilburne. "She lent the boy a coat, that's all."

Sheppard shuddered in a breath. It would be just like him to screw up, just like every other time. He wondered, not for the first time, if his karma was perpetually out of whack because he kept trying to do the right thing. If he simply chose one side and stuck to it would he be left alone?

He tuned back in to hear Lannert close the session. No one in the chamber seemed older than he was; he wanted to know where the "elders" were. No Wraith here to prevent a population growth; no shield and sacrifice for population control. He'd seen plenty of older people around, just none at the hearings.

"We turn them into biscuits," said Overton.

"Funny. You're funny," said Sheppard. "Where are they really?"

"People get bored sitting around. Most are watching from home. You and Tommy are rather amusing to look at together my Da said. He just didn't want to spend all day here," she said. "You've got your vote."

"When?"

"Soon," she said. "In the meantime," she nodded behind him, "I think you're about to face the music."

O'Neill and Weir were waiting for him. Overton moved off but he stopped her.

"Look what happens when you stop thinking like them," she said.

He walked over to O'Neill. Don't lose your temper. O'Neill was being every inch the General from the look on his face. Dr Jackson was, for some reason, taking notes. Carter hovered.

"What the hell is this?" O'Neill demanded, flicking at Sheppard's coat.

"You wanted me to do something, I did something," he said.

"Don't get flippant with me," O'Neill barked.

He took a breath. "There was nothing that any of these morons," he jerked his thumb at the Earth diplomats, "could say that they'd care about. I could. I have a right to petition."

"A right?" O'Neill asked.

"They're my family," he said, "They had to hear the petition. I just played by their rules."

"Right, I want to know how they left leave Earth. And when," O'Neill questioned him briskly.

"I don't know; I don't know any of that," Sheppard insisted. "I told you at the debrief. I've asked them. They won't tell me."

"You're in the Air Force, Sheppard," O'Neill said.

Sheppard was pale. "I have disobeyed orders, sir, but I have never violated my oath."

"You do realize," Carter said mildly, "that your family will be questioned."

He almost lost it but reined in his temper. He really didn't know what Rodney saw in Carter.

"Colonel, I wish them luck in trying to get anything more out of my father and grandmother than what I know. There are no plans to leave Earth; how could anyone leave without access to the stargate or a ship? The stargate's in a closely guarded military base. Where would they get a ship from? How did they travel in time? I don't know and they won't tell me. Until Mary Overton showed up on the reed planet, this was nothing but family history to me. It was a pipe dream. She said she couldn't tell me anything because of the grandfather paradox. General ... Sir, I don't know anything."

He saw Weir frown, as though she didn't quite believe him but O'Neill gave a slow nod. Sheppard relaxed just a little.

"Uh, um, Colonel?" interrupted Jackson flicking back over his notes, "Can you explain what you meant by the Cromwell reference? I think I recognized the quote. And," he flicked forward, "your house, I haven't heard the house reference before."

He kept his eyes on O'Neill. "It's from a 17th century pamphlet."

"And the house?"

"Agitators. From the Army." He didn't feel like giving a history lesson, despite Jackson seeming genuinely interested.

"And the Charter? What Charter? And actually, another question, something I thought of earlier, weren't the Levellers all religious fanatics?"

"They don't seem like religious fanatics," observed Beckett. "No one's even mentioned religion."

"Because we're not," muttered Sheppard, forgetting for a moment to say "they."

"You didn't get much help from your twin," said O'Neill.

"I'm just naturally lazy," Rainsborough said. He was walking past. "And also, crazy, I'm told. It gets me out of a lot of things, including helping people." He flicked a cool glance at Jackson and said, "Most people were religious fanatics in the 17th century, Dr Jackson. Sensible people get over it, and we are nothing if not sensible. We leave fanaticism to politicians, of whom we have the precise figure of none. Though admittedly, my brother William has the occasional 'rant.'"

Jackson flushed, embarrassed at being overheard.

Rainsborough leaned across to Sheppard over and tweaked the collar of the coat. "That never did sit right. Excuse me, I must have an argument with my girlfriend about her appropriating my wardrobe." He nodded at Weir. "Doctor."

He left them alone in the chamber.

"He has a brother?" Weir muttered.

"I didn't know it was his coat," Sheppard said. "I just wanted her help."

"He really doesn't seem that crazy," commented Jackson.

"You weren't on the reed planet," mumbled Beckett.

"He's better here," said Weir.

"So, now what do we do?" Carter asked.

"How did you persuade her?" Weir asked him.

"I don't know that I did," he said then to Carter, "We wait. They'll spend some time discussing the petition, then they'll decide what to do from there."

"What are the odds?" O'Neill wanted to know, still simmering. All the diplomats were silent. Sheppard wondered if someone with Darth Vader powers had rendered them mute.

"Not good," he answered.

_It's a beautiful life, but there's always some sorrow  
It's a double-edged knife, but there's always tomorrow  
It's up to you now if you sink or swim  
Just keep the faith that your ship will come in  
_- Great Big Sea, Ordinary Day

* * *

_Notes:_

What Sheppard says in chamber, beginning, "We were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons …" and "O Cromwell, O Ireton …" is from Richard Overton's March 21 1649 pamphlet The Hunting of the Foxes.

Daniel Jackson asks Sheppard about the Levellers being religious fanatics. This is true, of sorts. The Levellers were Puritans, of course, having fought on the side of the Roundheads or Parliamentarians. You'll be able to see their religiosity permeating the quotes I've used from the Putney Debates, etc. However, put it into the context of the times in which they lived: everyone was religious. The comment Rainsborough makes in response about his brother having the occasional 'rant' is something of an in-joke. The Ranters were a religious sect from the same period. Major William Rainsborough, a prominent Leveller and brother to Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, was a Ranter. The sect believed, apparently, that only nature could bring people close to God. Everything else, including the Bible, was not from God.


	12. Chapter 12

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed  
_- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Eleven**

The building was set back into the mountain. It was out of the way but not so much that there weren't people around. Unlike the rest of the place, which seemed to be in various shades of marble, the building shone in silver-black reflective mirrors and was composed of strange angles. They'd been asked after Sheppard's petition if they wanted to see around the "control center." It was a courtesy rather than a show of power, Sheppard said; they didn't care what the Earth team thought of them, but Weir thought it was interesting that only she and Sheppard and the SGC team were invited.

Cornet Lilburne was waiting for them. She was bouncing as she talked excitedly to a woman at the door. People wandered in and out, and there didn't seem to be any security at all. Weir wasn't the only one to notice.

"Don't you care if Joe Citizen and his family just strolls in and out," asked O'Neill in disapproving tones.

Lilburne's smile faded a little.

"We have no secrets from ourselves, General. The people are free to come and go as they please. How can we make informed decisions if we don't know what's going on?"

"Surely, you have some secrets," said Carter skeptically.

"Of course we do," Lilburne said rolling her eyes. "You know, for example, from you."

"Then why are you showing us around?" Carter asked.

"Well, Colonel, if you don't want to come, you don't have to," Lilburne smiled blightingly. "But if, at some stage, you have dealings with us it's only fair that you see how we work. We don't expect you to return the favor, so you can keep all your little secrets if you feel it's necessary."

"Why do I get the feeling that if you wanted to blow up Earth, you'd just come and do it," observed Jackson, following this byplay closely.

"Because we would," replied Lilburne. "Don't make the mistake of thinking we're your new best buddies, Doctor."

Weir saw Sheppard shift uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye.

"So, you're showing us …" Weir said knowing O'Neill was getting impatient with the attitude.

"The control room. We have a cadet taking a test today. It's the first day she's able to run the room without supervision. It's that Star Trek thing," Lilburne said.

"The Kobayashi Maru?" asked O'Neill looking suddenly interested and revealing his inner geek to Weir's hidden amusement.

"That's yer man," nodded Lilburne. "A little different. It could be a simulation or it could be real. She won't know until the end of it. It's not necessarily a no-win scenario either." She led them into an observation room. "We can watch from in here."

The control room was circular and the observation area ran all the way around the second level. Weir noted the similarities and differences to Stargate Command and Atlantis. The light was muted, though everyone could clearly see. The cadets wore dark gray and were seated at consoles with holographic screens, not unlike those in Atlantis. Some screens just scrolled data like the Atlantis screens; others flicked 3-D diagrams on and off. The blinking lights meant as little to her as they did at the SGC.

"Did you have to do this sort of thing, Cornet?" Weir asked.

She nodded a yes and said, "A few times. Failed each one but the last."

"What happened in the last?"

"I blew up a galaxy."

"And that was a pass?" asked Carter faintly.

Weir remembered Carter once blew up a sun.

"It wasn't a real galaxy. I got called 'Captain Kirk' for weeks," Lilburne grumbled.

"Commendation for original thinking?" asked O'Neill ironically.

"Yyyyep," she drawled. Pointing down to the figure in the center of the room. "That's Morag. This is her test." She leaned over to flick on the sound. "I can't see who's supervising. Commander Rainsborough supervised my first test. That was terrible."

"Tough, is he?" Jackson asked.

"And you know, crazy. He spent the entire time having a conversation with people who weren't there. Supplied all the voices—about 10 of them—then he shot up all the screens because two of the voices couldn't agree on what to have for dinner. It was so distracting."

"No wonder you failed," said Weir sympathetically.

"And he's in charge of your military, why?" said O'Neill. "I mean, I have my moments but I don't recall shooting up a room full of cadets."

"You have shot up other things, Jack," pointed out Jackson.

"So have you, Daniel," O'Neill returned. "In fact, I recall you going nuts on more than one occasion including the time I had to shoot you. Yeah, I know," he held up a hand, "I know, sometimes you weren't really crazy but ya gotta admit, sometimes you were. That's not even counting the times you died. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count those ones."

Carter rolled her eyes but Sheppard looked a little confused. Generals weren't supposed to behave like this.

"The Commander is really very good at his job," Lilburne started only to be cut off by a piercing alarm. "Ah."

Everyone leaned forward. The cadet, Morag, yelled over the top of the noise, "Will someone turn that bloody alarm off and see what the hell switched it on in the first place?"

A panel exploded and everyone ducked then looked up cautiously. The alarm died out in a sickening gurgle. Cornet Lilburne was chuckling at Morag, standing with her arms folded glowering at Rainsborough who was putting away a gun.

"Sir, I hesitate to point out the bleeding obvious, you never being in your right mind n' all," came her clearly annoyed voice, "but if you didn't bring a sidearm in here the alarm wouldn't go off and you wouldn't feel the need to switch it off by shooting out the damned panel! And after the last time you shot up the place the alarm was your idea so you'd remember. I'm taking a test here! Get over there and don't touch anything!"

"Okay," Rainsborough drawled.

Just for a moment Weir caught a glimmer of Sheppard in the laziness of his voice. He leaned against the back wall and seemed to fall asleep immediately. Morag walked over to him, carefully removed the gun and put it in a drawer. She held up both hands in appeal to Lilburne who waved back grinning.

"This is funny to you?" asked Carter at the same time as O'Neill said, "Good at his job?"

"Oh, hell yes," said Lilburne. "On both counts. You know why he's in charge? Because he's the clearest thinker we have."

Weir found herself trying not to laugh at O'Neill and Carter's faces until she turned to Sheppard. Her smile faded. He was watching Rainsborough, and looking—she didn't know—he wasn't laughing, and he wasn't shocked like Carter, he just looked curious and sad. He seemed to feel her gaze and glanced over at her then looked away. She had never known how to interpret Sheppard's introspectiveness and she never knew how much of the cocksure pilot act was an act. More than she thought probably.

_Justice divine has weighed: the doom is clear. All hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here.  
_- Dante Alighieri, Inferno.

"What are they doing?" asked Carter, always keen to learn about new technology. As Lilburne began to explain each section, Weir took the moment to ask O'Neill in a low voice what he thought.

"I think she's right." His eyes indicated Lilburne. "If these people wanted to blow up Earth, they would. In fact, if some of the stuff down there does what I think it does, they'd give the Asgard a run for their money."

Weir said that most of the equipment didn't mean much to her, though she had seen them in action. She mentioned the Wraith darts falling from the sky without being fired on.

"They're telepaths, right?" said O'Neill softly.

"I don't know if they all are," she admitted.

"Look at 'em, Doc. None of them are touching panels or buttons unless they need or want to. Those panels could just be monitoring stations but I don't think so. That one," he pointed to a 3-D display, "is a weapons console. And that one, and that one, and that one, and that one. At least. They're the ones I can see. Question is, where are the weapons?"

"Wherever we want them to be," replied Lilburne. Weir looked up. "I have good hearing, Dr Weir. My apologies for startling you."

"Just how much firepower do you have in this room?" O'Neill wanted to know.

"None," she said.

"Where is it then?" asked Carter.

"Elsewhere," said Lilburne smiling happily. "The show is about to begin. Sit, sit."

The room darkened slightly as Morag moved to the center of the room. What Weir had thought was an earpiece, like theirs in Atlantis, turned out to sit nearer the eyes. She was reminded of a sci-fi show she'd watched the evening before she'd been told about the SGC. Fargate or something. Their headsets were like these. Morag asked to be logged in for an update. A string of unintelligible reports flew past, though from O'Neill and Carter's meaningful glances at each other, they knew what was going on. Military jargon didn't change much from country to country—or even planet to planet—it seemed. Morag gave instructions to her team on various of the reports; Weir figured it was some sort of handover, but after half an hour of nothing more she started to fidget.

"CAD: CD Burford."

Weir sat up. Had she dozed off?

"Burford, this is CAD. Go," Morag responded.

"CAD: Burford. We're picking up a distress call. Liner 'Dalur' out of Apistin reports they've been attacked by pirates and requests 'neesha' from Leiter. Dalur has contact with Leiter. Dalur unaware of CD presence."

"Neesha?" whispered Weir.

"Nearest safe harbour," Lilburne said.

"Burford: CAD. Neesha unavailable at Leiter."

"CAD: Burford. Dalur reports she'd overloaded. Approximately 700 refugees from Achadh aboard. Losing compression."

"Burford: CAD. Distance from station?"

"CAD: Burford. Not yet within scanning range. Suggest diversion to Leiter."

"Burford: CAD. Neesha unavailable at Leiter."

Everyone turned to Lilburne.

"Leiter's a protectorate. We don't allow casual visitors."

"Surely, you'd allow refugees to land?" Weir was puzzled.

"Leiter's a sensitive spot. It's a favorite target for pirates, hence its protectorate status. If they've been followed …" Lilburne said, her voice trailing off thoughtfully.

"Burford: CAD. How long before the liner is within scanning range?"

"Got it now, guv," said one of the other cadets. He muttered something under his breath.

"Cyn? What?" Morag looked impatient.

"Yeah look, sorry," he said. Weir was amused by the boy's casualness in comparison to Morag who was clearly trying to be professional. "This console's crap. It keeps telling me there's a shadow and then when I run a diagnostic on it, there's nothing there."

"What sort of shadow?" Morag said.

"I can't get a fix, it keeps blipping in and out," he said. "It's …"

Morag held up a hand for quiet and asked. "Burford: CAD. Are you getting a shadow on your sensors?"

"CAD: Burford. No shadow. Can we get a response regarding this ship before it falls to pieces?"

"Burford: CAD. Can you see any decompression? Any damage?"

"CAD: Burford. All of it. Three decks almost completely blown out. Venting atmosphere."

Morag hesitated. Weir wanted to know if the scenario was real or not. From Jackson's jigging on his chair so did he. O'Neill and Carter were very still. She risked a glance at Sheppard. He was still watching Rainsborough, his eyes narrowed. Weir looked down at the back of the room at Sheppard's doppelganger. He was still slumped against the back wall, apparently asleep.

"Is that shadow still there?" Morag asked.

Cyn replied, "Regular as clockwork. Diagnostic reports console is accurate."

"Burford: CAD. Still no shadow?"

"Negative, CAD. Can we get on?"

"Burford: CAD. Direct liner to Leiter."

Weir was still watching Rainsborough. His eyes opened, and he reached out a hand for a headset and put it on.

"Burford: CAD. Cancel direction. Liner is unfriendly," he said. "Hold."

"CAD: Burford. Boss, you sure? This thing's leaking like a sieve."

"Sir?" Morag was furious. "You can't do that. Please return control to me."

He moved to the center of the room.

"Shut up, cadet," he said.

The SGC and Atlantis teams turned to Lilburne but from her open mouth, this wasn't usual. Everyone in the control room was glancing at each other.

"Burford: CAD. It's supposed to leak, that's what's shielding the rest of the ships."

"What ships?" Morag hissed. "Cyn? What ships?"

The boy shook his head. I don't know.

Morag paced but after a minute, she came to a stop.

"Oh, enlightenment at last," said Rainsborough unpleasantly as he watched her realization. "A shadow appearing on the far range sensors at regular intervals, and nothing on the close. First year textbook scenario and you fell for it."

"This is real," Morag said.

"No, really? Burford: CAD. How many people on that ship?"

"CAD: Burford. We're getting readings of nearly 800. We've rechecked, and there's no way in hell they're faking those. At least 700 Achadhians, the rest mixed."

"Burford: advise Dalur to switch off her engines and prepare to be boarded," said Rainsborough.

"CAD: Burford. Have advised."

"CAD: Burford. Dalur reports unable to comply. Request repeated."

"CAD: Burford. Dalur reports she no longer requires assistance. Ordered to comply."

"CAD: Burford. Dalur attempting to move off. Compliance ordered."

"CAD: Burford. Dalur reports she will space her cargo if she is not allowed passage. Repeat: cargo will be spaced."

Cargo … They were talking about people, Weir realized.

"Burford: CAD. Stand down. Return solutions."

"CAD: Burford. Negative, sir, Burford can deal."

"Burford: Negative." Rainsborough's face was stone. He moved to a console and ejected the boy sitting there. He traced something across the console's face. "Burford: CAD. Solutions returned."

"Sir …"

"I don't understand," Weir turned to Lilburne who had her hand over her mouth. Weir was confused. What was he doing?

"He's going to shoot down the liner," said Sheppard.

"What! But there are innocent people on board," Carter said horrified.

Sheppard said blankly, "They're gonna die if they're spaced."

"Burford: CAD. Firing."

There was silence. Some of the cadets were huddled together. Others stood hugging themselves. They all looked very, very young, thought Weir. She felt very, very old.

"CAD: Burford. Liner adrift, life support down, decompression, sensors indicate life forms reducing ... You hit their engines … Sir, request … Oh shit! Shit! Shit! There's friggin' 45 ships there!"

Rainsborough moved his hand back across the console and whispered, "Burford: solutions back." He looked ill. Lilburne appeared at his side. Weir hadn't seen her leave. He said something to her, took off his headset, and left—clumsily, as though drunk.

"Right, you lot, get back on station," Lilburne barked. "Scramble!"

_Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.  
_- Andre Gide

McKay called down to the control room: the ZPM was connected. Each step towards leaving Earth left her feeling more and more exhilarated. She walked quickly but calmly—she must appear calm—into the gateroom and nodded at Colonel Sumner. The surrounding corridors were filled with expedition equipment and supplies. The people who were going had to squeeze into the gateroom and around the equipment as best they could.

_Very cold. Set out early, the wind still hard.  
_- Captain William Clark, Journal (1804)

Weir didn't wait to see what happened. She ran downstairs, and stopped the first person she saw.

"Where would I find Commander Rainsborough?"

The man looked surprised. "I don't …"

"Nevermind," said Weir and went down the hall. Just testing the security, sir, she thought. She had no idea what to say if she found him. No one stopped her. The corridor yielded no clues. She opened a door. An office, but beyond that was a window. She could see him in some sort of walled garden, shaking badly, his forehead and hands flat against the wall. She followed the curve of the corridor around, opening each door until she found one leading to the atrium. He hadn't moved.

"Commander?"

Nothing.

"Commander, are you all right?" she asked.

"They're all crying," he whispered. "Can't you hear them?"

He began a high-pitched, grief-stricken keen. She didn't understand why none of his own people had followed him. She moved over and touched his shoulder. He pulled away at first but then grabbed her arm.

"I just killed 800 people. I'm. Just. Dandy," he snarled. "Get the hell away from me."

He shoved her away and turned to the wall as she fell backwards. Hands came down to lift her to her feet: Sheppard, white-faced. He looked across at his changeling and for the first time since she'd known him, she thought, he looked scared.

"What will happen?" she asked him. "Is there anyone alive?"

"I don't know," Sheppard said. "I don't know. He hit the engines. It was the only way to get the other ships to decloak and to stop them from spacing the … the … cargo. I think. A lot of technobabble. I didn't understand. Lilburne said they put slaves in the lead ship because they didn't think they'd be fired on if they were discovered. He didn't want anyone else to take the responsibility if everyone died, if he missed. I don't know. Wasn't looking good. I don't know."

He gave an odd, hiccupping laugh.

Another door opened. Mary Overton, Weir saw with a strange sense of relief. The blond woman moved over to Rainsborough, ran her hand down his back, and said, "Tommy, love …"

He turned to her. They sank to the ground, Rainsborough sobbing in her arms. Sheppard pulled Weir away, his arms holding her up. Only when they got outside the building did Weir realize that she, too, was crying.

_You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.  
_- Talmud


	13. Chapter 13

_When the dark night seems endless  
Please remember me  
_- Loreena McKennitt, Dante's Prayer

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Twelve**

She stood at the top of the stairs. Exercise. Go halfway down, then back up. She peered over the edge. It was a long way down. Weir had never suffered from vertigo, had never been afraid of heights, but then she'd never had to use rough hewn steps cut carelessly into the side of a mountain. Stick to the wall, she decided, and damn anyone who told her to keep to the left. A couple of kids ran by and bounced downwards, not looking where they were going. If they could, so could she, but in keeping with her age and dignity, she'd be a little more careful. Naturally. There wasn't even a railing.

There was a secondhand bookshop about halfway down, Mary Overton had told her in a rare moment of friendliness. "You might pick up a bargain," she had said. Weir mentioned it to Sheppard knowing his fondness for hardcovers. He grunted a little and said puzzlingly, "If you see my copy of War and Peace, can you buy it back?"

When the diplomatic movers and shakers arrived, they had been directed to the top of the city to meet Weir and O'Neill. They'd followed some locals up the steps and had been greeted—six hours later—by Mary Overton. Ambassador Bailey had been out of breath and panting but he made a small joke about the view. With the faintly mocking smile that tended to set Weir's teeth on edge every time she saw it, Overton said, "Why didn't you just take the lift?" and pointed to it behind them.

As Bailey's diplomatic smile faded, O'Neill whispered to Weir, "I think I'm in love." Weir had been hard-pressed not to laugh herself.

Still smiling at the silliness of the scene, Weir rounded a corner. It was one of the few places that wasn't a sheer drop down the side of the cliff. She hesitated then moved cautiously outwards, buffeted by the wind.

"Commander?" she asked.

Rainsborough stood at the edge, the tips of his boots barely on the path. He was looking straight down. Normally, he looked neat, professional, very military; now, his hair was hanging down in shreds, and he was dressed, despite the cold, in a t-shirt and scruffy trousers. He was shaking and muttering, his arms folded, hugging himself.

Weir stopped a few feet from the edge. He took no notice of her.

"Commander?" she called softly. She didn't want to startle him.

He turned his head to her, his eyes blank and unseeing. Each time he twitched he overbalanced a little. I should call someone, she thought, someone who knows what to do. She moved closer but jumped back startled when he unfolded his arms. She saw the blood on his clothes, and she saw the blood running down his wrists dripping over the edge of the sheer cliff. She swore and without thinking she leaned forward and jerked him away from the edge.

He fell backwards and lay shaking at her feet.

_There is no journey's end  
_- Loreena McKennitt, Never-ending Road

The doorbell chimed. Weir waited for a moment to see if anyone else was going to answer it. Silence. No, she was the only one in. She opened the door to Mary Overton.

"Doctor, I was hoping to find you here," she said. "May I come in?"

"Of course," Weir said. She didn't like Overton but always felt compelled to match the exquisitely polite tone. "Please."

"Thank you," she said. Today seemed to be Regency fashion day, still in sea-green.

"How is Commander Rainsborough?" Weir ventured.

Overton looked around the suite, her hands clasped together. "That's why I'm here," she said. "I wanted to thank you for your help. He'll be fine."

"Can't he be..." Weir started to say. "I'm sorry, it's really none of my business."

"Locked up? Medicated?" Overton lifted her chin.

"I was going to say 'helped,'" Weir said.

"No," Overton said, "No, he can't."

"He tried to kill himself," snapped Weir.

"He wasn't even aware of it," said Overton. "He never is."

"Somehow that doesn't sound like not trying to kill himself," Weir said. "He needs help. 'He never is' sounds like he's done it before."

"Yes," Overton said simply.

"I don't understand," Weir said. "He's your friend, isn't he?"

Overton stared at her. "Oh, yes, he's my friend," she said almost bitterly. "We're good friends."

"But," Weir started.

"I came to give you this," Overton interrupted her. She pulled a book out of her bag, handed it to Weir, and walked to the door. "Sometimes broken things can't be mended, Doctor."

Weir looked down at the book. She didn't know how long she sat with it, just thinking.

"Hey."

It was Sheppard. She looked over him, frowning. Oh yes, he's my friend ... Broken things ...

His smile faded. "What?"

"Here," she said, handing him War and Peace. "Here's your damned book."

_Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.  
_- Baltasar Gracian

Weir smiled down at everyone in the room. Major Sheppard stood at the front, his hands in his pockets. He looked—she didn't know how he looked. Not excited. Not exhilarated. He looked underwhelmed. Unlike everyone else he wasn't smiling now but she had seen his face as she came in. Sumner had just said something to him. Sheppard looked furious, ashamed, embarrassed, and highly amused—all of that in a few seconds. It was a strange smile and it distracted her for a moment, but now he looked bored; he looked like he was thinking of walking out.

_It's my imagination when I get low,  
And the truth is I don't think I'll ever go  
_- Sandy Denny, I'm a Dreamer

Sheppard looked glumly at himself in the mirror and put on his uniform jacket. Having made such a dramatic statement by wearing their hosts's uniform coat, could he legitimately wear his Atlantis uniform again? What would it say if he did or he didn't? O'Neill would snipe either way, he figured. He ought to give back the coat but he wished he could have had a photo taken for Nana.

The doorbell chimed. It was Weir, hands clasped together in an effort to stop her fingers twitching in what he'd come to recognize as her gesture of nervousness.

He broke in before she had a chance to say anything. "I don't know."

"Are you becoming telepathic, Colonel?" she asked in her light, dry tones.

"You have that look," he said.

And she did. It was the one she had when she wasn't happy, when she was being resolutely brave, and when she was being a "leader." He hated that look. She wanted him to step up and do things, and when he did, when he finished doing whatever it was, he was expected to go back to being a useful gene and a good little soldier.

"What look?" she said indignantly.

"The one you get when you don't think things are gonna go your way," he said. "I don't know what they're going to do."

"You know them better than the rest of us," she said quietly. "They think you're sympathetic, that you're one of them."

Sometimes he didn't know what he thought, or who he was, or what he belonged to. He was somehow comforted and dismayed at the same time that Weir thought she knew all these things.

_Beat the drum  
Beat the drum  
Like a heartbeat  
Lonely and strong  
Beat the drum  
_- Runrig, Pride of the Summer


	14. Chapter 14

_I don't talk to people much. I mean I talk to them, but they don't talk to me except to say that 'Your questions are irksome' and 'Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river.'  
_- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Selfless

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Thirteen**

There appeared to be no movers and shakers at all anymore. Bailey and his team had disappeared the previous day. Her team were early this morning. None of their regular contacts were there yet. The only person she knew was Dr Walwyn. He was talking to Beckett.

Carter and Jackson were talking quietly together. When they'd arrived from the SGC she'd asked why Teal'c wasn't with them; Dr Jackson had said he'd gone to visit his son, Ryac. Besides, he'd joked at the time, they didn't want Teal'c scaring anyone. She had smiled and laughed dutifully wondering how Teal'c could possibly scare anyone let alone these people.

O'Neill was wandering around the chamber, appearing to examine the woodwork; she thought he was looking for something. The camera pick ups, maybe. Sheppard was sitting beside her wearing his Atlantis uniform. O'Neill had quirked a cynical eyebrow but hadn't said anything.

"Good morning, Dr Weir, Lt Colonel Sheppard," a voice came from her right. It was Aeraneir Lannert, in black, dark glasses, shoe gazing. She stood, as did Sheppard, and they both murmured a good morning to him. He nodded but kept moving over to what she'd come to think of as "his spot" in the center of the chamber. He would know what happened yesterday. She followed him.

"Aeraneir Lannert?"

"Dr Weir," he said.

It wasn't what she wanted to know but she opened with, "Where are Ambassador Bailey and his team?"

"I sent them home," he said.

"Why?" she said. She knew why, she just wanted to hear him say it.

"Dripping water," he said unexpectedly.

"I'm sorry?" she blinked.

"After a while, a planet of people whining that a team of diplomats is boring wears one down," he said. "And yes, I do have an idea of how childish that sounds."

She considered how she should answer this. "They were pretty boring," she offered.

"Yes," he said. "Very. And honestly, they weren't helping you."

She swallowed. "Is Commander Rainsborough all right? After yesterday …" she trailed off.

He looked over the top of his glasses, as though assessing her, debating whether to give her a "He's fine" answer or the truth. Maybe this telepathy thing was rubbing off on her.

"You'd need to be here a long time for that to happen," he said answering her thought not her question. He really was strange. Sometimes he was stutteringly shy, other times he was exceptionally confident. Today seemed to be a confident day.

"Sir," she said.

He shook his head slightly. "It's good of you to be concerned, Dr Weir. He really will be all right; it's just hard to feel people die even from that far away—it's white noise deafening. I can block it, Tommy can't."

She suddenly understood. "The voices—he isn't schizophrenic."

"No," said Lannert.

"He isn't crazy."

"Not really, no," he said, "and sometimes, yes."

"Were there any survivors?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Not all but some, yes."

"Did he do the right thing?" Weir was curious to know what the rest of them thought.

He considered this. "You mean, do I think he did or the general opinion?"

"Both," she said. "You're one of your world's leaders, you must have an opinion. And I am interested to know what others think."

"You mistake my role here, Dr Weir," he frowned. "My opinion is no more important than anyone else's."

"And no less important," she countered.

"Doctor, I spend a lot of my day in a dark room. It's where I was yesterday afternoon," he said dryly. "To say that I'm influential just because I occasionally get dragged out of my gloomy cell to adjudicate protectorate hearings is overstating my position."

"You didn't say what you thought," she persisted. "Those kids were scared stiff. There were 800 people on board that ship."

"There's a reason why Tommy is in charge of our military, Dr Weir," Lannert said harshly, "and that's because he will make decisions when no one else is willing to do so. There were nearly 4000 people on those ships and millions on Leiter, which is a protectorate precisely because of attacks made by pirates. The slave trade in that part of the galaxy is huge. Could we have stopped the one ship without any casualties? No. They would have been spaced before we even got to them. The ship was too well shielded to transport them off. As it was, there were over 400 on the ship who made it because that one shot of Tommy's incapacitated the engine and sealed most of the hull. The apparent decompression happened when they tried to space the rest of their cargo. The rest of the ships were able to be stopped and boarded, preventing their own cargoes from being spaced. The greater good doesn't outweigh the deaths but sometimes there are no right decisions or wrong decisions, Dr Weir, sometimes there are only decisions." He looked up. "Our new guests are arriving."

The room had filled while they were talking. She saw Sheppard jump to his feet and back away, and she looked beyond him to the door. The Wraith had arrived.

_Truth is, I like this world. You got dog racing, Manchester United, Love Boat and you've got people. Billions of people walking around like happy meals on legs._  
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Becoming Pt 2

Sheppard tried to clamp down on his panic. He should have known, he should have known. Remember, Johnny love, there's two sides to every argument. Thank you, Nana. The Wraith were telepathic. How would they fare here? How would everyone here fare with the Wraith? Weir had told him what happened back on the reed planet with Rainsborough making the darts crash.

"Don't worry, Colonel," said Dr Walwyn, who, along with Beckett, was sitting behind him. "We're perfectly safe."

"Why are they here?" Sheppard hissed at him. "It isn't a good idea to let them know there are people here. They look at humans and they see food!"

"We're not terribly palatable," Walwyn smiled at him. "They won't like us at all."

"How did they get here?" It was Weir and O'Neill both glaring at him. He felt like squeaking that it wasn't his fault but really, really, he should have known.

The Wraith passed them. One stopped and turned to look directly at him. "You are Sheppard," he said.

Sheppard froze for a moment and tried to think of something cocky to say. All that came out was an unpleasantly feeble, "Yes."

"I look forward to," the Wraith paused, "discussing this situation with you."

Oh good … Sheppard recovered in time to say flippantly, "Gee thanks, Irving, happy to chat. Anytime."

The Wraith moved on and were directed to seats near Lannert. They looked around at the humans in the chamber.

"Irving?" murmured O'Neill.

Sheppard shrugged.

Lannert moved into the center of the room and asked everyone to be seated.

"Colonel Sheppard," he said. "As you can see, we have guests."

"Yes," he said. "Why?" Sheppard folded his arms defiantly.

"It was noted that we hadn't heard from the people you mentioned in your petition. Before the vote is taken, they should be heard," Lannert said.

"I mentioned the humans in the Pegasus galaxy as well as the Wraith," Sheppard replied. "I don't see them here."

"We have requested various representatives from human worlds, too," said Lannert. "They'll be here shortly. We have also taken the opportunity for site visits."

Site visits.

"You've seen culled worlds?" Sheppard asked.

"As well as culled worlds," Lannert said without looking at the Wraith. "Interesting ships."

Sheppard took a moment to work out what that meant. They'd been on the hive ships. When? We're not in time. He mentally crossed his fingers. And his toes for good measure.

Several of the chamber doors opened. He turned to see who was coming in: Teyla, thank god. Halling and Jinto. Keras and—crap—Ares. Allina and Sanir from Dagan. He could see Smeadon and another Menarian. Friends and not so friendly, all. No one from Proculus but he wasn't surprised. It wasn't like Chaya could leave. No one from Hoff, also unsurprising. Others they'd met, friends and enemies, came in twos and threes.

Jinto ran up to Sheppard and gave him a fierce hug. Sheppard stretched out his free hand to Halling and Teyla, who was dressed in what he had dubbed her "Leader of My People" coat. Weir and Teyla hugged. Keras greeted Sheppard looking pleased; Ares glared but when didn't he? Smeadon unsurprisingly didn't look Sheppard in the eye. As each group was ushered to their seats, they gave the Wraith a wide, nervous berth.

He grabbed Teyla's arm before she went to sit down.

"Has this been explained to you?" he asked.

She nodded yes. "Are they wise to bring the Wraith here?" she asked. "They will know where this planet is."

He snorted a laugh. "We're perfectly safe," he mimicked Walwyn.

A tap, tap, tapping sound came from across the chamber as though someone was having difficulty in walking. He drew in his breath with outrage. Cowan, Sora and Kolya. The Genii commander shuffled in on walking sticks. What the hell had happened to him? All three Genii stared across the room at him, Cowan and Kolya with hatred, Sora just looked troubled. The Wraith looked at the Genii with interest and, he was freaked to see, smiles.

"Will everyone please sit down," said Lannert quietly. "We need to get on."

Cowan said something that Sheppard couldn't quite hear. It was obviously about him but he couldn't work it out. The Genii were sitting behind Lannert who said without facing them, "Chief Cowan, the only reason why we didn't go through your stargate and kill all your people is because Dr Weir was generous enough to ask that we not do so. We don't like people who hurt our friends or who torture members of our family." He didn't say who the "family" was. "You have no voice in this forum. I suggest you be quiet until you're given leave to speak."

There was a figure in the shadows behind the Genii. He leaned forward and tapped Kolya on the shoulder.

"Morning," smiled Rainsborough.

Sheppard had no idea what was going on but he did like that Kolya looked shattered.

"Did you?" he whispered to Weir.

"No," she said. "He's lying to them. I was angry. I wanted them dead. I still do."

It was interesting that there were so few questions, he mused, as he listened to each Pegasus denizen speak about the effect of Wraith cullings and a life of fear. Keras talked about the shield and their population control sacrifice. Allina talked about the "potentia" and the return of the ancestors. She asked if McKay was present. He shook his head at her and she looked disappointed. Teyla and Halling spoke together of a life on the run and the Athosian move to Atlantis. Halling held Jinto close to him. The boy got a few smiles from their audience. Smeadon … he tuned out during Smeadon's talk and imagined clubbing the Menarian over the head with one of the man's bottles of rocket fuel. That earned him a poke in the back from Dr Walwyn but he thought back fiercely, Well, stop reading my mind then. He got a sigh in response.

After half a day, it was the Genii's turn. He wasn't too surprised when Cowan turned it into a rant against the Atlanteans. Kolya said nothing but his eyes burned. Sora still looked troubled.

Cowan choked to a halt. Lannert had held up his hand.

"Chief Cowan, do you have anything to say about the Wraith?" Lannert wanted to know. "That's why you're here."

"That we weren't able to defeat the Wraith is their fault," Cowan snarled. "We lost hundreds during the great cull." He took a breath, as if to keep bellowing. Sheppard shut his eyes to tune Cowan out.

But Cowan didn't say anything else. He heard Weir gasp and O'Neill say, "What the hell?" at the same time. He opened his eyes. Cowan was … Cowan was dead. His neck looked broken. Lannert stood over him with a look of distaste on his face. He was holding a Genii gun between his thumb and forefinger. Kolya and Sora looked horrified.

"Weapons are not allowed in this chamber," Lannert intoned gravely.

Everyone bar Rainsborough looked solemn. Rainsborough smiled.

"Uh, what?" Sheppard muttered to Weir.

"He didn't touch him, John," Weir said. "Cowan opened his mouth, put his hand in his pocket, then his neck just clicked and he dropped. Aeraneir Lannert was holding the gun. He didn't touch Cowan."

"Look at the Wraith," Carter hissed at them. "They look surprised."

The Wraith didn't look surprised, Sheppard thought. They looked greedy.

_The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the bough, some of which go and others come.  
_- Dante Alighieri

She should have spent more time with him, really, but there had been so much to do. She'd argued with Sumner about Sheppard being on the expedition. His maverick reputation didn't just stem from Afghanistan. A whole list of black marks for taking what Sumner called "a liberal interpretation of direct orders" was littered through his record. She had asked Sumner if Sheppard was so bad at being in the Air Force, why hadn't he been discharged? He shrugged and said, "Apparently, he can fly anything." She replied that the same applied to Ancient technology. Sheppard was a natural and no matter what Sumner's objections, Sheppard was going. She'd have the doors sealed to prevent Sheppard from pulling out of the expedition if she had to.

_Oh, is it too late to change the way we're bound to go?  
Is it too late? Surely one of us must know.  
_- Sandy Denny, I'm a Dreamer

They called a recess. They had to, if only to remove Cowan's body from the chamber. Carter had said the Wraith looked surprised but to her mind the one who looked surprised—and even then it was only a faint smile and a quirk of his eyebrows—was Rainsborough. Sorry he hadn't thought of it perhaps.

She turned to Dr Walwyn, sitting behind her with Beckett. What was it with Carson? Walwyn's medical knowledge was light years beyond Beckett's but there was Carson comfortably arguing about genetically engineering a cure for the common cold. The two doctors took it in turns to argue for and against the idea.

"Dr Walwyn? May I ask something?" she interrupted.

"Of course, Dr Weir," he smiled at her. "You want to know what happened with that very angry Irishman."

"He's not … he wasn't Irish," she said.

"He sounded Irish," pointed out Walwyn. "That's peculiar, don't you think?"

"I thought so," said Sheppard turning his head back to join in. "Just before he broke all my teeth, I thought, that accent is strangely Irish."

Weir frowned at Sheppard for his levity. He looked at her innocently and amazingly, Distraction No. 2 made an appearance. It was short flip of a smile but it was there. He turned his attention back to the Wraith and the smile shrank to a cold stare.

"Who killed him?" she asked Walwyn.

"Oh, Dafydd did. A nice clean break," Walwyn opined. He sounded approving. Carson also looked approving but said nothing. Doctors.

"Aeraneir Lannert, he seems too …" she said. She couldn't think of the right word.

"Yes," he said. "All those things and more. Yet, in this room he can get people to behave like no one else. Take him out of here and he's almost paralytically shy. He had the most awful stutter as a child."

"Is it his …" she asked not knowing quite how to describe his eyes and cringing as she did so, "um, that gets people to behave?"

"No," Walwyn said. "It's more that he could blow up the planet just by picturing it happening."

Could he? Oh, right. That hadn't previously been mentioned by anyone. Walwyn said it too casually for it not to be the truth.

Sheppard tilted his head back and said conversationally, "Even Nana would be impressed by that." He still stared across at the Wraith. The one who had spoken to him stared back.

I doubt it, thought Weir, Sheppard's grandmother seemed the most indomitable of individuals. She watched Lannert as he stood head bowed, arms folded, listening to Rainsborough. Walking wounded, both. Lannert nodded then turned back to the room. This time everyone sat without being told. Kolya and Sora were gone.

Lannert started speaking but she couldn't understand him. It sounded vaguely Latin, and Teyla and Halling across the room leaned forward listening intently. It wasn't Ancient. There was something of a sibilant hiss to it, as though his mouth was too full of teeth. Sheppard sat up straight and muttered, "Son of a bitch" under his breath. He was still watching the Wraith. They, in turn, were sitting very straight in their seats looking at Lannert with something akin to delight. They're hungry, Weir realized with dismay, and they were looking at Lannert as though all their desserts had come at once.

He was speaking Wraith; she'd never heard it spoken before.

Lannert stopped speaking, paused, and started again in English clearly repeating what he'd just said in Wraith. Her jaw dropped slightly as, she could see, did Carter's, Jackson's, and O'Neill's. Sheppard seemed to be grinding his teeth but from his face, she didn't think this was unexpected. Lannert was telling the Wraith precisely what the Earth team had said about wiping them out.

Worse, he told the Wraith the Levellers had refused to do so. The Wraith whom Sheppard had dubbed "Irving" opened his mouth and made a peculiar snakelike sound. Dr Walwyn, behind her, asked Beckett if the Wraith used their teeth for anything. She heard "What if we offered them a good dental plan?" Beckett started muttering back and she made shushing noises at both of them.

Irving stood. "The Lantians have promised our deaths but we will feed on them to the last and move to newer feeding grounds." He gave a wide, unpracticed grin.

"And which feeding ground might that be, Irving, laddie?" came a drawling voice from the gallery.

The Wraith looked up and around. "This place …" he said testing, looking at Lannert. The Wraith were telepathic, Weir thought. They could sense Lannert.

"Try again, boyo," said the same voice.

"Earth," Irving said, still with the same grin. Weir wanted to know if they'd told the Wraith about not caring about Earth's fate.

"Eh, you won't like it there, Irving. You'll get indigestion," another voice replied.

Weir couldn't see who was talking, but she couldn't help herself and snickered when Sheppard looked resigned as his nickname for the Wraith took hold.

"We will feed on Earth and we will come for you," the Wraith said.

He lunged towards Lannert and … bounced backwards. Sheppard looked like he'd won the lottery: they'd surrounded the Wraith with a shield. Perfectly safe, indeed.

"Or," Lannert said in severe, schoolmasterish tones, standing in front of them, "you can stop talking and acting in clichés and start negotiating. It's up to you."

The Wraith stared at Lannert. Irving's mouth was pulled back into a full sneer, his head forward. Weir seen that stare before—on Teyla, under the influence of the Wraith. Her skin crawled. Lannert stared back, but then he unexpectedly broke the stare and took off his glasses. And she saw just how unlike the Wraith his eyes actually were. The Wraith's eyes were bulbous, and a sickly color. Lannert's eyes suddenly reminded her of a luxurious Persian cat her neighbor in Washington had—a deep, glowing, healthy gold. He was, she acknowledged, a pretty boy really, almost elfin. Irving pulled back shocked. The other Wraith got to their feet.

Lannert said quietly, "I would have thought the earlier demonstration was convincing enough."

He stepped back and waved his hand, just as Rainsborough had done when using the weapons console in the control room. The air shimmered and Weir realized he had switched off the shield. Irving flung himself forward again snarling, his hand outstretched at Lannert's chest.

And then like Cowan, Irving died.

Lannert frowned at Irving's body and in a mildly peeved voice called yet another recess. The other Wraith were ushered away. Weir wondered why they'd been brought here at all. Was it just the Leveller sense of fair play in wanting to hear all sides? Or was it—she suspected it was more likely—that they wanted to see the Earth team's reaction. They were being tested, she knew, she just didn't see the point of it.

Lannert stamped out clearly annoyed. As he got to the Earth delegation, O'Neill said, "Pretty hard on your 'guests,' aren't you?"

Lannert twisted his head to look at O'Neill. "You're still alive," he said. He kept going.

"I think we've done okay," ventured Beckett.

"So far," said O'Neill.

Rainsborough was standing next to the Wraith's body. Weir excused herself to O'Neill and strolled over casually, a chance encounter at a murder scene.

"Commander?" she said tentatively.

He took a moment before he looked up from his study of the Wraith. It looked crumpled.

"How did he die?" she asked.

"Whatever way Dafydd killed him," he replied bleakly. He nudged the body with his foot. "Multiple organ failure, I'm guessing."

"Aeraneir Lannert …"

"He's really very shy, you know," said Rainsborough.

"Not in here," she said.

"No," he agreed. "Not in here."

A couple of soldiers came in with a body bag—interesting, she thought, that the model hadn't changed in 16,000 years—and shoved, was the only way to describe it, the body in and carried it out. Rainsborough scowled after it.

"Dr Weir," he said. "My apologies for my bad manners yesterday. I hope I didn't hurt you."

"Are you all right?" she asked him.

"Doesn't really matter, does it," he said a little forlornly. "I expect I'll get over it."

She touched his arm. "You did the right thing."

He opened his mouth as if to argue but then said, "Thank you."

She hesitated and said carefully, "And your health, otherwise?"

He held out his wrists, badly scarred. "I don't remember it, Doctor, I never do. Last time, I walked in front of a speeding vehicle. I don't remember that either."

There wasn't anything she could say to comfort him. She looked around. "I don't see Mary Overton here today."

"No," he said flatly. "She decided not to come today."

"Is she well?"

"Yes," he said. She didn't think she'd get anything else from him but he surprised her with, "It's hard for her." He looked unhappy and scuffed his foot, looking down as if surprised not to have the body to kick.

"What happens now?" she asked to change the subject, knowing he'd follow the non-sequitur.

"I believe that Dafydd is going to have a chat with the Wraith," he said.

"Is that wise?"

"For him or them? They have more to worry about. He'll come out of it and announce that the Wraith will be returning to their original food source and that they've promised under pain of multiple organ failure that they'll never touch another human again. Then he'll persuade us to recreate their original food source if it no longer exists. The geeks who will have to work on it will be annoyed and they will bend everyone's ears for ages." He sounded vaguely complaining.

"That sounds hopeful," she said. At his glance, she added, "For us."

"Or not, depending," he corrected her firmly. "And he'll have to spend the next five months in complete darkness to get over it. I'd rather be crazy."

"You are crazy," Weir said gently. "So I'm told."

He looked at her suddenly genuinely amused.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Sometimes I forget."

_I am always with myself and it is I who am my tormentor.  
_- Leo Tolstoy, Memoirs of a Madman


	15. Chapter 15

_The life of all things is in the right use and application,  
which is not our worke only, but every mans dream and conscience must  
look to it selfe, and not dreame out more seasons and opportunities.  
_- John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince and Richard Overton An Agreement of the Free People of England (1649)

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Fourteen**

"It's been two days," O'Neill snapped. "Two days."

Sheppard could only nod. It had been two days. No getting around it. Two days it had definitely been.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Well?" O'Neill growled.

"Sir," he tried not to show his own impatience, "I don't know what's going on. They'll tell us when they feel like it. I can't do anything about it."

They'd spent the last two days doing nothing. No hearing sessions, no questions, no one took them on tours, no nothing: they hadn't seen anyone. More importantly, he hadn't seen anyone. He cautiously tried calling Mary Overton but the message he received was that she'd gone away for a few days. He tried Rainsborough then Lilburne. Nothing. He even tried Lannert after being told previously by Overton never to call him; Lannert didn't take calls, she said. Still no response. Beckett was the only happy one. After one burbling report on the latest medical whatchamacallit Beckett been shown, Sheppard had snarled that he was pleased the Doctor was having such a good time.

"Testy," was all Beckett said in response.

He walked all the way down to the bottom of the city and all the way back up again. That wasted twelve hours at least. After that he was too tired to do anything other than sit and watch people go by from the balcony of their hotel, except that there were no people going by. Even on his walk he met no one. It was creepy.

"This is creepy," O'Neill announced.

Sheppard had to admit that O'Neill was getting on his nerves. Sometimes it was kind of nice that O'Neill wasn't like other Generals; sometimes he wished O'Neill was like other Generals. At least he'd know how to respond when O'Neill acted like one.

"Yes, sir," he said again.

"Stop saying 'Yes, sir,' Sheppard, you're getting on my nerves," O'Neill said.

He looked at O'Neill pacing up and down. "Yes, sir," he said.

O'Neill snapped, "I'm going for a walk" and flung open the door. Mary Overton was standing there, her hand up to ring the doorbell.

"I do hope I'm not interrupting," she said politely. She looked, Sheppard thought, a little tired.

"What's going on?" demanded O'Neill.

"In regards to?" asked Overton archly, as if she couldn't help herself.

"Mary," Sheppard said wearily, "we haven't seen or heard from anyone in two days."

"Poor dear, were you lonely?" she mocked. Sheppard ground his teeth and she relented.

"Would you meet us in chamber in an hour? The vote has been taken."

"You wouldn't care to give us a hint, would you?" asked Jackson.

"No, I wouldn't," she said. "You can wear your glad rags if you want to."

They made their way through the suddenly crowded streets—where had all the people been? A few people greeted them here and there. It was hopeful, he thought. He could tell Weir thought so, too.

"Sit," said Lannert in his near whisper and, as usual, everyone sat. "This," he said—a holographic screen lit up—"is a representation of the Pegasus Galaxy as we've mapped it."

Carter put together their two day absence with the map. "You mapped an entire galaxy in two days?" she asked clearly stunned. It was an impressive feat, Sheppard surmised.

"No, it took several weeks," Lannert said, "We wanted to know where everyone in the Pegasus galaxy is located."

"When did this happen?" Jackson asked puzzled.

"In the last two days," Lannert said.

"You just said …" Carter said.

"Yes," Lannert cut her off. "Do you want to talk about temporal mechanics or our decision, Colonel?"

"Decision," Weir said, "Please."

"For reference's sake, we've placed Atlantis in the center of the map." He indicated a light blue area. "This area," he pointed at the blue's encircling green, "is what we have designated the Atlantis border, essentially the limits of its solar system. Inside this space, we will do nothing. If the Wraith obtain access to Atlantis, or to Earth via this area, we will do nothing. This," he pointed at a small red circle, "is the Genii homeworld. Its stargate has been sealed and the system mined. The Genii are embargoed. They are unable to leave by stargate or by ship. They will remain there. The rest of the Pegasus Galaxy is declared an Agitator protectorate. The petition is granted."

"But," Weir said, "Atlantis …"

"The petition is granted," Lannert repeated briskly. "This is not a negotiation, Dr Weir. We are not interested in becoming your allies. The petition did not request Earth become a protectorate. Good day to you."

He called the session closed. He gazed across at Weir and then Sheppard for a moment, inclined his head, and was gone. Sheppard stared downwards oddly bereft. He'd won: he should be dancing in the streets.

"That was abrupt," Carter said.

"So, that's it?" asked Jackson bewildered.

Sheppard glanced up from the contemplation of his hands. Dr Jackson had taken copious notes in neverending journals. Sheppard wondered what he would do with them.

"Yeah, so Earth," said O'Neill said to Sheppard.

"We wouldn't have got Earth," he tried to explain.

"Crap, Sheppard," said Carter hotly. "You didn't even try. Do you hate your own home that much?"

He whitened and O'Neill said softly, "Carter, shut up."

"Sir," she said forcefully. "He …"

"Shut up, Carter, leave it," said O'Neill watching him.

Sheppard shook his head and pushed past O'Neill to Mary Overton. She held out her hand, pulled him in, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He tried to say something but she put her fingers across his mouth to shush him.

"Go," she said smiling.

"But," he said.

"Anything beyond this is grandfather paradox territory," she said. She looked behind him to the rest of the Earth delegation. "At least, for a little while."

"And me?" he asked, for once wanting to know the answer.

"It's up to you what you want to do, Colonel," she said. We're here. We suddenly won't just not exist. It doesn't work like that—grandfather paradox notwithstanding. Don't worry about your father and nana. They won't go near them. And no, I can't say how I know that."

He looked at her wryly, "Do you have any idea how irritating you are?"

She smiled more broadly and said, "Tommy keeps telling me so."

"Will we see you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "The local populations won't know we're there. We're not police officers; we don't get involved in petty squabbles. But we'll stay until we're not needed anymore." She smiled again. "I don't think you need to worry overmuch about Atlantis, Colonel. I doubt the Wraith will go near it."

He glanced at the still fuming Carter. "You want to tell Colonel Carter that?"

"I believe that Colonel Carter is a clever woman," Overton said. "She should be able to work out how far a hive ship can jump through hyperspace."

Sheppard worked out the math in his head and tried not to grin. He took Overton's hand and gently kissed her on the cheek. Thank you. But his smile faded as he thought of something.

"How will I ...?" he started. "If I ..."

"Ssshhh," she said. "Don't worry about it. Go back to Atlantis."

Rainsborough came up beside her and nodded to him, then looked across to Weir. "Doctor," he said. "A pleasure."

"Goodbye, Colonel," Overton said.

Sheppard stepped back, his heart strangely frozen and close to breaking. As he reached Weir, Overton called his name. He looked back.

"A new day, Colonel Sheppard," she said. "Live happily ever after."

He bit his lip, nodded, and said softly, "New day, Mary."

_You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.  
_- Joseph Stalin

Cornet Lilburne took them back. It was even the same dragon ship, only this time it didn't fall over, maybe because Lilburne allowed Sheppard to fly it. He didn't need any instructions and laughed and joked with her all the way. Appearances sake.

Some of the Atlanteans were waiting for them when they got back to the reed planet. Even the reed people were waiting, all smiles, their troubles all forgotten. Sheppard became withdrawn when they got there. He looked around frowningly as though trying to recover the gaps in his memory.

Everything was quiet. For months. They heard nothing. People still traded as usual, though no one had heard from or had seen the Genii. Their gate address didn't work. Nothing was heard from the Wraith either. Things were peaceful, too peaceful, she thought. They were told by various traders that after the "Great Culling" the Wraith had gone back into hibernation. The Wraith, it was said, would be back after they'd slept their fill.

For Sheppard, distraction now meant introspection rather than a variety of smiles. She caught him occasionally looking at a photograph and one day she worked up the courage to ask him who it was.

He handed her the photo. It was a man in the Air Force uniform of a full Colonel. He looked like Sheppard.

"This is my dad," he said. "I miss him a lot these days."

"You could have gone home," she said, "at least on leave. No one would have denied you that."

He just shook his head and didn't mention his father again. He spent a lot of time by himself, going out in the puddlejumpers, wandering around the city, out on the south-west pier. His team, particularly McKay who complained that he'd missed everything and who asked millions of questions none of which Sheppard answered, hovered around him. Sheppard didn't seem to notice. She invited him to talk, to try to get him to open up. He wouldn't for a long time.

They were sitting on the south-west pier looking at the city. It had best view, he said. It wasn't until Teyla told her later what happened with Chaya that she had been able to interpret the flicker of panic on Sheppard's face at the mention of the word "picnic." She'd tried to keep a straight face but both women had exploded with laughter.

"What about you?" she asked him. "What would you do?"

_When I leape I shall take soe much of God with mee, and so much of just and right with mee, as I shall jumpe sure.  
_- Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates (1647)

Sheppard shifted uncomfortably, as if he were about to take flight. He took his hands out of his pockets and folded them across his P-90. As she spoke, he rolled his eyes slightly. This was his chance to back out. Sumner glanced across at Sheppard, willing him to pull out or perhaps thinking that he would. From the look on his face, Sheppard could feel Sumner's glance. If she'd guessed correctly about John Sheppard, he'd stay put.

_Washboqlan khaubayn aykana daph khan shbwoqan l'khayyabayn  
(And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors)  
_- Abwoon

At the start of the mission, he was quiet. She wished them luck. Everyone was chatting as they went through the gate. Sheppard lingered and she asked him if everything was okay.

He nodded and walked over to the gate. He paused and turned back to look at her.

"John?" Weir asked. "Are you sure everything's okay?"

He smiled again. Distraction No. 3. Sweet, genuine, distracting.

"Everything's fine," he said. "Take care, Elizabeth."

It was a regular, ordinary, everyday trading mission, he said. Nothing happened. They went, they talked, they traded, they went home. Nothing happened.

"What happened?" Weir asked.

"Look, I said nothing happened. There weren't any weird, time traveling superhumans around; the Genii weren't there, no one," he snapped, "Nothing, nada, and other words that mean nothing happened. We have to go back there."

Every inch of the place was examined, footsteps were retraced, the locals interviewed, and they returned home dispirited.

"I told you nothing happened," he said. "It was peaceful, boring, they were simpletons."

"Except," Weir said quietly, "after you finished Stackhouse came through the gate first, followed by Teyla. You came through just before Bates's team."

"Yes," he said, "Exactly what happened."

"Rodney," she said. "Colonel Sheppard went through the gate after Stackhouse and Teyla and before you. He didn't arrive back here."

McKay looked down, shuffling his feet. "No," he said.

Things were bad when McKay got quiet.

"You can't explain what happened?"

"It shouldn't have happened," he exploded. "You go through the gate there, you arrive back here."

"Didn't this happen to SG-1?" she asked. "Colonel Carter and General O'Neill were sent to Antarctica."

"Yes, but that was because the gate was hit by something. Plus, they were sent to the other gate on Earth. Nothing happened to either gate here. If anything was going to happen, it would have happened to more of us than just Colonel Sheppard. How many times do you want me to say nothing happened?"

"He's gone," she said. "He's gone home."

"What?" McKay said disbelievingly. "How? How could he possibly go through to Earth. This is the only stargate in Pegasus with access to Earth."

She turned the envelope in her hands. "When you arrived I came down to the gate to meet you. My desk was clear. When I got back, this was on it. It's a letter from Colonel Sheppard."

"Someone must have put it there. There's no other logical explanation," McKay said.

"No," she said. "No one put it there, it just arrived."

"Well, what is it?" demanded McKay.

"It's his resignation," she said.

"He can't do that," said McKay. "I don't even know how he'd do that. What did he say?"

She looked down at the letter and smoothed out the note attached to the letter resigning his commission.

_Elizabeth,  
Second chances are rare. Thank you for allowing me one. Third chances are even rarer. I need to go home now. It's the right thing to do. Take care.  
Goodbye._

McKay was ranting.

"Aside from the logistics in how he theoretically managed to do that—because it's completely impossible—don't you know anything about physics?—why would he? I know he hasn't been … normal since …" He waved his hand in the air. "But, he wouldn't … would he? He said … he said …"

There was a knock at the door. It was Bates holding his team's camera.

"Ma'am, there might be something here."

The video was normal. It was an ordinary, friendly meet and greet. The natives wanted to trade and they hammered out an agreement and a cultural exchange in a matter of hours. It was boring to watch though the team seemed to be having fun. Sheppard was livelier than he had been in months. On the video, he was laughing and joking, flirtatious. Everyone was happy.

But the camera also caught when Sheppard's smile faded, the moment where he didn't think anyone was watching him. He pulled something out of his pocket: Weir recognized the photo of his father. Sheppard looked at it for a moment and looked away. The camera followed his view: Teyla, playing with some kids; Stackhouse, flirting shyly with a pretty girl; Bates, clearly alert in case of trouble; his team, the same; and then it lingered on McKay, who was waving his hands around as he made a point, obviously boasting about something. The camera returned to film Sheppard watching each person closely, as if memorizing every face. He put the photo back in his pocket, his face set.

The camera captured the moment at the DHD. Stackhouse dialed the gate. He and Teyla disappeared through it. Sheppard and McKay were next. Just before they got to the gate, Sheppard stopped and put his hand on McKay's shoulder. He said something; McKay looked puzzled. Sheppard walked through the gate, then McKay. The video stopped.

He came here, Weir thought, because he was needed, even if it was only to switch on the lights. His Air Force career was over the moment he disobeyed orders in Afghanistan. The only reason he hadn't been discharged was because the Air Force would look silly kicking out a hero who had saved three servicemen's lives. His choices were a desk job or Antarctica. After that? She couldn't see him as a civilian pilot flying business people from one meeting to another. He'd be bored and frustrated. He came here to atone for the sin of being caught between two worlds, and not being able or even not wanting to fit into either, and he left because he wasn't needed in Atlantis anymore. His choice was between his friends and his family, and family will always win out when it's the right thing to do.

"What did he say?" she asked. "At the gate, he said something."

McKay sounded betrayed and upset. "He said … 'Take care of each other.'"

_Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the  
people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.  
_- Marcus Aurelius


	16. Chapter 16

_Time would say nothing but I told you so  
Time only knows the price we have to pay  
If I could tell you, I would let you know  
_- WH Auden (villanelle)

**All the Good Stories  
By EllieV**

**Chapter Fourteen**

Sheppard sat in the car outside the nursing home and watched people come and go, dimly aware that most of them were elderly visitors visiting their even more elderly relatives. His father stirred beside him impatiently and he blinked back into reality.

"Are we going in?" his father asked.

"Sure," he said. And sat there.

His father frowned. "John?" Sheppard said nothing. "You didn't say if you were home for long."

"No," Sheppard said, "not for long. I'm not home for long." He smiled at his father. "Let's go see Nana."

They were shown into a small room. She was sitting at a table, her back still straight, her eyes still clear. She was writing. He recognized her journal. She had kept one since he was little, always the same style of book. He used to sneak peeks at it.

The nurse said loudly, "Look who's here, Mrs Sheppard. It's your son and grandson!"

"I may be 89, girl, but I'm not deaf, " Nana snapped in clipped tones. She said to the air, "The nurses here are idiots. They can't seem to understand that I prefer my own name. They think I'm senile."

"Hello, Nana love, I see you're still terrorizing the staff," Sheppard said shrugging an apology at the nurse. The woman rolled her eyes at him and left.

"It's nice of you to visit your aged grandmother, John Sheppard," she said narrowing her eyes at him. "Back from that stinking hole you were exiled to, I see."

He knelt by her chair, took her hand and kissed her gently. "I missed you, too, Nana."

She touched his face and smiled at him. "Are you out of trouble yet?"

"No," he said. "Yes. Soon."

"How soon?" his father asked him, then to his mother said, "He said he wanted to wait until we were together to tell us. He's driving me crazy. As usual."

Now he was here, Sheppard hedged a little but then it came out in a rush. "I'm … I'm quitting the Air Force."

"What?"

His father looked appalled, his grandmother approving.

Sheppard held out his hand to his father. "Dad, please, I've already quit. I had to."

"But ..." his father started.

"Nana," he said, "Dad. I'd like you to meet someone." He looked at the door. "This is Mary."

His father blinked at the tall blond standing in the doorway. She was dressed in sea-green; her hair was piled high and pinned with a silver hair slide. They stared at her.

Nana's hand tightened on his. "It's time, isn't it," she said.

Mary Overton smiled at them all.

"New day, Nana Rainsborough," she said. "Yes, it's time. Everyone's ready. We should go now."

_Lost bird caught in mid migration  
Far away to a foreign land  
Offspring of a secret nation  
A new day has begun  
_- Great Big Sea, Feel It Turn

General Landry promised he'd get her back to Atlantis as quickly as he could but it took nearly two weeks before she was able to escape Cheyenne Mountain to take her week's leave. She spent most of it shopping. McKay had organized lists from all the scientists, and Stackhouse had done the same from the Atlantean military contingent. Teyla, strangely, had asked for popcorn. Weir thought she hated the stuff.

It was a nice neighborhood. Weir, for a moment, tried to imagine a Wraith dart screaming down and picking up everyone its beam ran across. It was hard to imagine in this peaceful, tree-lined avenue, the leaves just starting to fall. What it did have, instead of the Wraith, she was amused to see, was nosy neighbors. There were three of them watching her. She'd been sitting in her car just watching his house for a while now. Weir picked up the book, got out of the car, and walked up the path to the front door, putting a hand out to ring the bell.

"Oh, no one's there now, honey," a voice called.

Weir walked over to the low hedge separating the properties.

"Is nobody home?" she asked. "I've come a long way."

"Well, Colonel Sheppard moved," the woman said. "To be nearer his son."

Weir frowned. "I'm sorry, when was this?" she asked.

"A few months ago," the neighbor confided. "John's in the Air Force, you know. He gets moved around a lot—helicopters—I mean, he flies them. Goodness, we haven't seen him in so long. I don't know what the Colonel was thinking because he'd just have to keep on moving whenever John does. And, what if John gets posted to Iraq or Afghanistan, again? He can't go there."

Weir looked down at the book in her hand. She opened it up and read the dedication again. The book had been her excuse for coming to see him. She didn't think it would hurt so much.

_I can see the Earth below me  
And I can feel it turn …  
_- Great Big Sea, Feel It Turn

Right up to the point when Ford flung himself backwards through the gate—and how dumb was that considering they didn't know what was on the other side—he wasn't going. Right up to the point where he stood in front of the puddle, he wasn't going. He hadn't been going ever since he said he'd go.

"What's it like?" he asked. Did Ford see his doubts, his inward terror, or simply the surface nervousness of a stargate newbie?

Ford was solemn. "Hurts like hell, sir."

Then Ford threw himself with a "Woohoo!" backwards into the stargate. Hope it really, really hurts, kid. He took a breath, held it, shut his eyes, screwed up his face and stepped through the puddle.

It was green.

Only the soft gleam of emergency lighting enabled him to see when he stepped through on the other side. And then a second later everything switched on, as though Atlantis was welcoming him home.

_Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come uninvited and  
often unanticipated. Destiny is what a man does with these raw materials.  
_- Howard Thurman

"And then what will happen when the new day comes, Nana?" he asked her, fiddling with her hair slide.

"And then, Johnny, my darling," she smiled down at the little boy, "well … then we'll all live happily ever after."

She touched his face gently.

"It's how all the good stories end."

_His children gathered `round him with their prittle-prattling stories  
With their prittle-prattling stories to drive care away  
Now he's happy as those with a thousand riches  
Content he'll remain and not ramble away  
_- Spencer the Rover (trad)

**The End**

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Once upon a time there was a splendid documentary series called _The History of Britain_. One of the episodes, featuring the English Civil War had a section on the Levellers, a remarkable group of Puritans who had somewhat different ideas to the revolution than did old warts n' all Oliver Cromwell and his ilk. Cromwell essentially wanted more of the same but sans the King; the Levellers wanted everyone to have a say in running the country. Yes, that's an over-simplification, but then so is my story. The Levellers lost and to all intents and purposes, the movement died in 1649. The Levellers ideas lived on, as Daniel says, in other remarkable events and documents, including the American Declaration of Independence. The Levellers have been claimed as the first Socialists. True, I haven't read all the pamphlets, so can't say whether they were or not, but I find them an interesting and often inspirational group of people, particularly Colonel Thomas Rainsborough.

There it would have been left—an interesting bit of history that I intended to read more about—had it not been for a couple of other things that happened. The first was another terrific documentary series called _Battlefield Britain_, created by Dan and Peter Snow, which traced the major battles in the British Isles from Boudicca (insert your own spelling …) to the Battle of Britain, and how the battles were fought and won. It was great fun. One of the battles they looked at was Naseby, which was the first major battle won by the Roundheads during the English civil war (or revolution, depending on which side you were on). This rekindled my interest in the Levellers, who were, of course, on the Roundhead side.

The second was _Stargate Atlantis_. And yes, not especially connected, are they, but I started playing "What if?" and after listening to the song "Feel It Turn" by Great Big Sea, the "What if?" suddenly turned into the introduction of _All the Good Stories_. Of course, the "secret nation" in that song is likely to refer to Newfoundland from where GBS originate, but it was too late: _All the Good Stories_ was born.

Why did I make Sheppard a Leveller? Well, he seems so remarkably democratic—in the real sense of the word. Plus, he always seems so torn and mysterious, and hiding something, and I thought, _what the hell_. The big question is whether he would he leave Atlantis if he thought his usefulness was at an end? And the correct answer is, of course he would. Why did he go in the first place? Because he was needed, and he thought it was the right thing to do. If he wasn't needed anymore, he would the first to put his hand up to leave, though this thought only relates to season 1 Sheppard. He only became sentimental in the series later on. He cares, certainly, indeed he cares too much, but sentimentality is a different thing to caring.

You'll have noticed that the Levellers aren't especially nice for people who turn out to be the good guys. Instead of doing something about what they disliked about Earth they just left, rather like the Ancients running away from the Wraith but leaving the Pegasus humans to fend for themselves. Feel free to dislike them. I like Tommy Rainsborough and Dafydd Lannert but Mary Overton needs a good swift kick up the backside, I think. She's a right cow. As is Nana Rainsborough, whom I found came out as particularly manipulative. Sheppard doesn't especially believe in any of it, but like him going to Atlantis, feels that he has to do the right thing. In the series doing what he sees as the right thing always governs his actions. _Hot Zone_ is the prime example of that.

This story was originally written as a Burroughs cut up; I couldn't help it. That's the way it came out of my head. I wrote the introduction first, then the next scene I wrote, which I subsequently had to edit into a section down the track, was one that came near the end. Essentially, I wrote scenes, and then found myself thinking "Oh, that would be good to put in," and then I'd write whatever it was, even if one scene interrupted another. Some of the scenes that continue on from each other I even wrote at different times. The quotes that break up the story also came quite accidentally because I kept coming across stuff that I thought was relevant. I still mourn the stuff I had to leave out, including all of "My Baby Needs a Shepherd" by Emmylou Harris, which I thought was particularly propos. This is about as linear order as it gets for this story and was a request from a reader.

There are five Sheppard smiles, the ones Weir calls "distractions." They are:

_Distraction No. 1: The "I don't want to talk about it."_

_Distraction No. 2: The mischievous, evil little boy grin._

_Distraction No. 3: The sweet and genuine smile._

_Distraction No. 4: The one she can never interpret._

_Distraction No. 5: The "I'm going to say something cheeky."_

Watch Atlantis and pick them out for yourself. :)


End file.
